


rise and rise again, until lambs become lions

by erebones



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Dragon Riders, Injury, M/M, Mating Flight (Dragonriders of Pern), Mild Sexual Content, Threadfall (Dragonriders of Pern), Trans Claude von Riegan, Weyrs and Weyrlings (Dragonriders of Pern)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:54:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22376794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: Lorenz never asked to be Weyrleader of Leicester, but the role was thrust upon him in the wake of great tragedy. Now, as he works to prepare his dragonriders for another assault, a newcomer arrives in Leicester Weyr to throw all his careful plans into disarray.
Relationships: Lorenz Hellman Gloucester/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 15
Kudos: 111
Collections: Claurenz Week: Winter 2020





	rise and rise again, until lambs become lions

**Author's Note:**

> _and when they seek to oppress you, and when they try to destroy you, rise and rise again, and again, like the pheonix from the ashes, until the lambs have become lions, and the rule of darkness is no more._
> 
> NOW WITH GORGEOUS ART!! You can find it embedded in the fic, but here is a [link](https://twitter.com/foundati0ns/status/1250881940573560832?s=20) to the art on twitter by the amazing @foundati0ns.
> 
> This is a fusion with the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffery, with a little bit of How to Train Your Dragon for good measure!! If you haven't read the books, fear not: all you really need to know is that dragons and humans have formed a symbiotic relationship to combat the threat of Thread, nasty little wormy guys that fall from the sky once a year. If you want Even More Lore, I wrote up a quick explanation of how things work and you can find it at the bottom. BUT it's not necessary to read it first if you just want to dive in! 
> 
> I've tagged this with "mild sexual content" since it's not as full-on horny and descriptive as I usually go, but there IS a sex scene in here. Also Claude is trans and I try to use ambiguous language for the most part.

Claude von Riegan arrives at Leicester Weyr in state. Later he’ll insist that it wasn’t intentional, but it hardly matters; gold dragons are few and far between these days, and he flies in just as the sun is setting beyond the craggy hills, almost as if he’d timed it on purpose. Liquid light spills over everything and transforms his dragon into a shining beacon, reflecting the sun in every direction like a jewel. Lorenz is standing atop the battlements when they pass overhead, shielding his eyes against the glare. At his side, Hilda huffs a little breath of derision. 

“Show-off.”

“He’s certainly earned it.” Lorenz turns his back on the sunset to follow the queen’s trajectory over the Weyr, turning in lazy circles as she makes for the open courtyard nestled in the castle’s shadow. “Not many golds in Fódlan these days.”

“Do you think he’s really the Riegan heir?” Hilda asks. She peels away from the battlements and Lorenz follows close on her heels, tetchy and trying to hide it. He _is_ the Weyrleader, after all. It is his duty to greet honored guests with some modicum of politeness, regardless of his own feelings. 

“I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we.”

Hilda scoffs at the non-answer and tosses her hair over her shoulder, but her steps quicken as they reach the flat-packed earth of the Weyr’s training grounds. Ahead of them, the newcomer is guiding his queen to a perfect landing, deceptively delicate for her size and frame. The grounds grow deathly silent as everyone stops in the midst of their evening duties to stand and watch. Normally Lorenz would bark at them to go about their business, but today he can’t begrudge them. Even down in the shadow of the Weyr, out of the sun’s ruddy glare, she’s a magnificent sight to behold. 

Lorenz hasn’t seen a gold queen up close since the last Pass—since Judith of Daphnel’s spirited Huareth, now gone _between_ with her rider, graced Leicester Weyr with her presence. A cold fist presses itself against his windpipe at the memory, but he cannot afford to entertain it now. Instead he folds his hands behind his back as they approach, steps slowing instinctively. The queen swings her heavy head around to observe them, and lowers her foreleg, allowing her rider to slide in a practiced leap from his saddle to the ground. 

“Well isn’t this nice!” the man exclaims upon seeing them approach. He beams a dazzling smile that’s almost as bright as the hide of his dragon, and pulls his long leather gloves off to bare his hands for shaking. “I wasn’t expecting a welcoming committee.”

“Did you expect to arrive unremarked?” Lorenz asks archly. He takes von Riegan’s hand, looking him over. He’s dressed in plain but well-kept riding leathers, with an impressively large bow strapped to his back to match the quiver at his hip. His hair is dark and windblown, but in a rakish, disarming way, and he smiles with all his teeth and none of his glittering green eyes. Lorenz drops his hand. 

“Well, perhaps not. But I’m honored to receive your welcome all the same. Claude von Riegan, at your service.” He bows to Lorenz, and then again to Hilda, taking her offered hand to brush a kiss across the knuckles. “Fair lady, it’s my pleasure to make your acquaintance as well.”

“Hilda of Goneril Hold,” she says, tittering. Lorenz rolls his eyes. 

“Lorenz of Gloucester Hold, and Weyr—”

“Weyrleader of Leicester, yes, I know.” Claude regards him keenly, clearly as interested in Lorenz as Lorenz is in him. “Rider of… blue Suryth, is that right?”

“It is.” He tries not to grit his teeth at the pointed designation. To have a _blue_ rider as Weyrleader is unheard-of; despite his father’s best hopes, it’s not as if Lorenz took this mantle in the traditional way. But he has no intention of fighting about it right now, not in front of Hilda and the entire bloody Weyr, whose lively evening activity has ground to a halt around them at the new queen’s arrival; so he takes a breath and says, in his most genial tone of voice, “I’m sure you must be weary from your journey—both of you.” He glances up at the queen, who is patiently looking away, jeweled eyes spinning lazily as though utterly disinterested in the goings-on beside her. Lorenz tries and fails not to feel offended. “Space has been made in the Weyr for you and…”

“Ah yes. My darling Fajr. Say hello, sweetheart.” He gives her shoulder a slap, and the massive creature finally deigns to look their way. Her eyes aren’t gold like the rest of her, but green, verdant facets gleaming as brightly as her rider’s. She inhales deeply and exhales, hot and dry. A very informal greeting for the leaders of an unfamiliar Weyr. Lorenz’s skin prickles with irritation. 

“She’s beautiful,” Hilda sighs quietly, the offense breezing over her without touching so much as a hair on her head. “How old is she?”

“Nearly ten,” Claude says with a proudly-puffed chest. Lorenz does some quick mental math. Unless Claude impressed particularly early, he can’t be more than twenty-four turns old. Perhaps even younger. He isn’t sure whether that’s better or worse than his expectations. “Don’t worry, she’s a bit shy, but she won’t cause any trouble. We’re both well aware that we are guests here.”

Another bow, this time with a little flourish in Lorenz’s direction. He is, unwillingly, placated. “Hilda, would you and Freith show Fajr the eyrie? The fields below are well-stocked if she would like to hunt,” he adds to Claude. “She may have her pick of the herd.”

“Most generous,” Claude murmurs.

“It’s past the dinner hour, but I told the kitchens to expect you. If you’d follow me?”

Claude dips his chin in acquiesence, but hesitates. “I don’t know how your dragonriders do things…”

“We bunk with our dragons,” Lorenz fills in when he leaves the question hanging. “If you would prefer to stay in the castle…”

“No, no. The eyrie is fine. Thank you.” 

Is that… relief he sees in Claude’s face? Lorenz blinks, and whatever it was—the softening of his mouth, the rumpled worry on his brow—is gone and smoothed away. Perhaps it was only his imagination. 

“Do you do it differently, in Almyra Weyr?” Lorenz asks as he leads the way inside. People scatter before them like fieldmice before the stalking fox, but he’s not arrogant enough to think that they’re parting for _him_. “In regards to your quarters, I mean.”

“No, our Weyr is much the same. I just wasn’t sure what to expect here. Fódlan is quiet different in… other ways.” 

Claude’s eyes scan the dining hall as they arrive, taking in the simple trestle tables, the stone floors swept clean but worn from centuries of use. Leicester Weyr is a very old castle, built into the rocky crags of the mountain range that splits Goneril and Riegan Holds. It was once a place of stately grandeur, but time and tragedy has ground away its lavish veneer, leaving behind only weathered granite and tired people stretched thin between the crumbling ramparts. 

Still, food is one thing the Leicester Weyr does well, thanks to the man who heads up their kitchens. Raphael Kirsten is manning the last remaining cookpot when they arrive, clearly in the midst of entertaining his partner with a tall tale of some kind. Ignatz is sat on the counter, whetting a hunting knife, but hops off as soon as he catches sight of them, falling into a clumsy bow. 

“Please don’t mind us,” Lorenz says firmly. He means to show this newcomer that the traditional bonds of hierarchy do not exist in Leicester Weyr as they do elsewhere. “We’re only here for a quick bite. Claude, this is Ignatz; he rides green Victoriath.”

“Delighted,” Claude says, shaking the slighter man’s hand, and he seems to mean it. “Claude of Almyra Weyr.”

“Yes I know,” Ignatz blurts out. He clears his throat and stows his whetstone with a little bob of his head. “It’s an honor to have you here.”

“Is it?” Claude asks. He glances from Ignatz to Lorenz, who feels a twinge of embarrassment at his cold manner thus far. “I’m really nobody special.”

“You’re a rider of a queen!” Ignatz exclaims, his excitement edged with exasperation. “There hasn’t been a gold in Leicester Weyr since—”

A warning look from Lorenz, and Ignatz shuts up, enthusiasm ground to a halt beneath his Weyrleader’s heel. Ignatz bows again, smiling nervously. “Well, nevermind. Suffice to say it’s good to have you here. I’ll leave you to your meal.”

Raphael, not nearly as oblivious to the tension as he lets on, quietly serves them equal platters of venison and tuber stew, simple but hearty, and brimming with herbs and little pearls of sprouted barley. They have their pick of seats, but Lorenz follows Claude’s lead, and they end up seated in a corner near the banked brick oven, opposite each other at a low table where the kitchen staff usually take their predawn meals. 

“You haven’t eaten dinner yet?” Claude asks as they make themselves comfortable. 

“Ah—no. I was too busy earlier to take the time.” Lorenz is halfway to seated, but he pauses, second guessing himself. “If you would prefer to eat in peace—”

“No, please, by all means.” Claude gestures with a hunk of bread already dripping with dark brown broth. “Sit. I’m eager to get to know my new Weyrleader a little better while I have the opportunity.”

Lorenz grimaces a caricature of a grateful smile and sits down fully, dropping his eyes to his platter to avoid watching his dinner companion tear into his food like a starving man. Unbidden, the truth rises to his lips as he begins to tear his own small loaf into pieces, focusing on the food rather than the topic of conversation as it strays toward the cliff’s edge. “That is kind of you to say. We both know I shan’t be Weyrleader for much longer.”

Claude pauses mid-gulp to stare at him. “You shan’t?” he echoes, just a touch of mockery to the words. He swallows his food and sets down both bread and spoon, licking a stray droplet of gravy from the corner of his mouth. “I see. Weyrleader… I think perhaps there’s been something of a misunderstanding.”

“Has there?” Lorenz asks, more bitterly than he intends. 

“Like I said before, I’m a guest. I’m well aware that transferring between Weyrs can be difficult, especially with a queen. Just because I was chased out of my home Weyr doesn’t mean I’ll be a good fit _here_. I’ve made my peace with it. You should, too”

“You are not entirely a stranger here,” Lorenz demurs. He picks up his spoon, determined not to neglect the meal Raphael so kindly prepared for them. “Leicester blood runs in your veins. Your grandfather was Weyrleader here for most of his life. And with your Fajr a gold—”

“Oh, I see. This is about Fajr, not me.”

“It’s about a great many things, all of which are out of my control.” Lorenz takes a deliberate bite, chews, and swallows, waiting to be talked over or interrupted. But Claude holds his tongue, only watching him closely over the rim of his water goblet. “I only became Weyrleader through tragic happenstance. Blues do not lead Weyrs. Golds do, or bronzes. Even browns, in a pinch.”

“The color of a dragon’s hide has nothing to do with their leadership abilities,” Claude says firmly. “And if what you say is true, why is Hilda not Weyrleader? Or is Leicester as backward-thinking as its northern neighbor?”

“Hilda… declined the honor,” Lorenz says, which is a polite way of saying that Hilda threatened to leave the Weyr if she was promoted. 

Technically they’d been on equal footing as Wingseconds during the last Pass, but her bronze Freith should have put her above him in rank when it came to selecting the next Weyrleader from the wreckage of Leicester. Without a queen—and without a clutch to provide hope for the next generation of riders—the duty fell to the next in line. To Lorenz. 

It’s not a very complete answer, but Claude seems satisfied. “You see? I stand by what I said. A dragon’s color has no bearing on their rider’s capabilities.”

“Bold words from the rider of a queen.”

“I know, I know. I can get away with saying shit like that.” He sops up the last of his stew with the warm loaf and stuffs it all into his mouth with a look of pure bliss. Lorenz, horrified and entranced in equal measure by the display, cannot look away. “Believe me, where I come from, riding gold isn’t necessarily a blessing.”

“Is it not?”

“Queens are a little more common in Almyra Weyr,” Claude explains, finally sitting back in his seat with a sigh. His dark skin is still a little bit windburned from the ride, and now with some food in his belly and a warm fire at his back he looks entirely at home. As if he’s always been here, stuffing his face and laughing as readily as any jumped-up Wingleader fresh off their first Pass. “There were two others besides my Fajr, growing up. Fajr was the older, but the other queen rose before she did, so.” He shrugs. “I didn’t really have a choice.”

Lorenz nods as if he understands. He _does_ , in theory—queens are notoriously territorial, and when there are more than one in a Weyr, the queen to rise first takes leadership of the conclave. The other, or _others_ , are sent off to propagate other Weyrs. 

Leicester hasn’t had a mature queen in the Weyr for longer than he’s been alive; Huareth had been their pride and joy, but before she could rise in a mating flight, the Blood Moon had passed them over and taken half the Weyr with it. Before her, Duke Riegan was Weyrleader with his stately bronze. In his own living memory, there has never been a queen in Leicester Weyr. Until today. 

He wants to ask him more about Almyra Weyr, their different customs and traditions—they clearly don’t adhere to the central Fódlan custom of ending the names of their dragons on a voiceless fricative, nor to Faerghus Weyr’s preference for the old-fashioned manner of altering a dragonrider’s name once they impress. But Claude is obviously exhausted from the long flight, so Lorenz hands him off to a servant and retires to his office. There is always plenty for a Weyrleader to busy himself with, and with the events of the day his mind will be spinning in circles for hours yet. May as well make good use of them. 

🐉🐉🐉

“...and the last strap goes there, like so. That way you can use your heel in the stirrup like a sort of steering device. There are six positions, and the metal lever locks into place when you move your heel like this.” Leonie grabs Lorenz’s bootheel with some force and moves his foot in illustration. The stirrup, buckled to his boot, slides the metal lever into the next rung down. Then the next, with a bit of a sideways motion between each descent. Lorenz, twisted around in the saddle, watches her push her hair out of her eyes and stand back. “So, what do you think?”

“And this will move his tailfin in the correct manner?”

“Once it’s all hooked up, yes.” She grins up at him from the ground, where he’s perched like a newly-impressed Weyrling on a practice drum. Suryth’s saddle is fixed in place, along with this new attachment Leonie had devised. “Wanna give it a spin? See if it works?”

Lorenz turns to face straight ahead, wriggling his ankle back and forth to get a feel for the stirrup. On the other side of the training ring, Suryth lies tucked in an elegant coil, his head on his forelegs and tail curled demurely beneath his snout. << _Well? Shall we… give it a spin?_ >>

<< _It’s intriguing_ >> Suryth admits, finally lifting his head. His cool-toned scales, technically marking him a blue, are really more of a periwinkle shade, gleaming a dark violet in the light as he lifts himself up and shakes off the sand. << _I would like to try it._ >>

“Let’s give it a whirl,” Lorenz says out loud. He frees his foot from the stirrup with only a little finagling and hops off the barrel, dusting his hands off on his riding leathers. 

Getting a full-grown dragon saddled and ready is usually a three or four-person job, but he and Leonie manage with just the two of them and Suryth’s generous assistance. He holds himself lower to the ground than usual to let them reach the buckles without fetching a stepstool, and soon Lorenz is pulling himself up Suryth’s foreleg and swinging into the saddle. 

It feels _good_ to be dragonstride again. Head and shoulders above the rest of the world twice over, with the immense grace and power of his partner underneath him, condensed and waiting to burst free. He sighs and lets himself relish it a little longer as Leonie fiddles with the tacking lines. 

It probably wouldn’t be possible with a larger dragon, but Suryth is lean and petite enough to make it work. Lorenz can feel when the lines are properly attached—his heel moves differently in the stirrup, requiring a little more force to adjust the positions. Behind, Suryth’s missing tailfin is fitted on one side with a tanned leather replica, also courtesy of Leonie, and he twists in his seat to watch it open and close and angle with every adjustment of the lever. 

<< _Stop that_ >> Suryth chides, sweeping his tail in a half-circle. Leonie has to jump to avoid being swept off her feet, and she laughs, giving the blue a solid _thwack_ to his hindquarters. 

<< _Just testing it out._ >> Lorenz turns back around, nerves churning in his belly. If this goes wrong, it will spell the end of his and Suryth’s work. Not necessarily the dull, day-to-day doings of the Weyr, but the _true_ reason they fly together—fighting Thread. 

They have a few months to make it work, he reminds himself, an eye to the sky. The blood moon that appears in their sky once a year is still but a bright, winking speck in the night, a warning of things to come. By the time it arrives, he and Suryth will be back on their game, ready to lead their Weyr into battle. 

<< _We have company_ >> Suryth says, shaking him from his thoughts. << _Queenrider._ >>

Lorenz sees him a split second after Suryth’s warning. He strides into the ring like he owns the place, dressed casually, hands in his pockets and hair windblown like he’s just come back from a ride. Perhaps he has—as much as Lorenz would prefer to keep an eye on him, running the Weyr and seeing to his own dragon takes precedence. 

“Sorry,” Leonie pipes up before Lorenz can, in her best no-nonsense voice, “this ring is closed for training.”

Claude grinds to a halt halfway across the sand and lifts his hands in supplication. “Sorry. I can leave, I didn’t mean to get in the way.”

“It’s all right, he can stay.” Lorenz forces a metal rod of calm into his voice despite the flutter in his belly. He’s already nervous about this test flight, and now with his usurper—with a _guest_ in attendance, the possibility of fucking this up rides even heavier on his shoulders. Underneath him, Suryth rumbles a wordless tone of comfort. 

<< _We are strong. He will not supplant us._ >>

<< _He might have to_ >> Lorenz replies, even though it hurts. If Suryth cannot fly the next Pass, Claude and Fajr are their clear successors. 

“Can I ask what you’re doing?” Claude asks politely, oblivious to their mental conversation. “I’ve never seen tacking like this.”

“Made it special,” Leonie says, only slightly less clipped. She glances at Lorenz for permission before continuing. “At the end of the last Pass, Suryth here was scored by Thread—not his fault, he was the last of his Wing still flying at that point. He had to have half his tailfin cut away. Of course, that means he’s a bit less independent than he was before.” She gestures Claude to the rear of the dragon, indicating the supple leather replacement buckled into place, the lines and tacking that connect it to Lorenz’s left stirrup. “He can’t fly as high or fast or precisely as before, certainly not enough to fight Thread. Not on his own. But with a rider…”

<< _I grow impatient_ >> Suryth huffs in Lorenz’s head as Leonie continues to explain, growing more and more animated at Claude’s pointed, intelligent questions. << _I miss the sky. Do we fly, or do we not?_ >>

Lorenz looks to the ring’s edge. It’s one of many just like it, built into the cliffs above the castle, half-open to the sky with a death’s drop into empty space on one side. To throw themselves off it would be nothing, if Suryth were whole. Right now, with his tailfin half rigging, who’s to say whether they will fall or fly? 

<< _We fly_ >> Lorenz says. He tightens the straps around his thighs and feels Suryth surge beneath him, wings half-raised. 

“Whoa, whoa.” Leonie shields her face against the grains of sand that billow at the sweep of his tail. “Are you going? You’re sure you’re ready?”

“Now or never,” Lorenz calls back. Suryth’s head emerges into the sunlight, then the rest of his long, spined neck, glistening pearlescent violet up to his shoulders where Lorenz sits just above his curled wings. His stomach drops a little at the view spread out before them: the castle far below, the high walls, the houses half dug into the side of the mountain and the rutted road winding down to the fields and the lake beyond. And above it, the sky, blue and clear and endless. _I’ve missed this._

Suryth bugles his agreement, and it echoes off the cliff-face like a joyous trumpet call. All up and down the eyrie’s face, dragons poke their heads out of their dens, and people lift their heads from far beneath them, hardly more than ants upon the ground. Lorenz grins.

<< _Come on, then. Let’s give them something to admire._ >>

“Hang on,” Leonie is saying somewhere behind him, “let me get Vir, just in case you run into trouble in the air—”

“I could grab Fajr, too, if you like; she’s just next door, still in her tack actually, I was coming to see if I could get a hand…”

Lorenz shuts his eyes. Their voices filter into nothingness, like the cold, blissful black of _between_. All he can feel is the sweet air on his face, the coiled power of Suryth beneath him, ready to spring. Suryth’s blunt claws dig scores into the bare rock of the eyrie’s mouth, matching hundreds upon hundreds of marks just like them. Generations of dragonriders flinging themselves into the unknown from this very place. 

He shifts his heel down. The vibration of metal hooking into metal travels through his boot and up his leg, and in his head Suryth goes alert and perfectly still as his tailfin spreads flat. 

_Now._

With a mighty cry, Suryth launches himself into space. Lorenz’s stomach drops in earnest as the ground falls away, and with it the sound of Leonie and Claude calling after them. For a second he’s utterly breathless, paralzyed in the saddle as he waits for Suryth to jerk, to fumble, to fall. 

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t fall. He _glides_ , secure and serene, catching the waves of warm air that billow skyward from the sun-hot Weyr below. Lorenz sucks in a giddy breath and laughs out loud. 

<< _You’re doing it! Suryth, you’re flying!_ >>

<< **_We_ ** _are doing it_ >> Suryth corrects. He cranes his head back, eye whirling a playful rose color, and Lorenz follows the movement like he’s part of him, hitching his heel down twice as they bank to the right. The stirrup is a little clumsy, perhaps a hair or two slower than Suryth would be naturally, but the movement completes in perfect harmony as they skim in a lazy circle around the Weyr’s peak. 

On the second pass they bank left, closer to the training ring. Leonie stands at the very lip where they’d launched, waving and grinning fit to burst—he can’t hear her with the wind whipping past his ears, but she’s shouting something that rings of the same pure, unadulterated joy he feels brimming in his chest. He hasn’t flown in _so long_ , months and months of trying and failing and trying again, all culminating in this bright, incandescent moment of victory. 

He catches a glimpse of gold out of the corner of his eye and smirks. Claude had returned to Fajr after all, but only stands in the mouth of her roost, leaning against her side, watching with those keen green eyes that Lorenz can make out even at this short distance. _This is our Weyr_ , he thinks, allowing himself this moment of petty, stubborn pride as they surge past. _You will not replace us._

Suryth trumpets again, a ringing yell of pure elation. When he twists his great leathery wings to beat them skyward, Lorenz moves with him, feeling out the angle of the stirrup instinctively. Half of him is in the saddle, maybe even less than half—the rest of him is with Suryth, their minds linked in synchronicity. 

Beneath them, the earth disappears. Above, the thin, cloud-studded air reaches out to embrace them like long-lost friends. Lorenz shuts his eyes and lets the chill sting his cheeks, drag at his hair, pluck cheekily at the fastenings of his riding leathers. They’re well above the Weyr, now, the castle like a toy in the far distance. A flock of birds flies beneath them in a ragged V formation, and Lorenz could crow for the delight of it. He’s no longer sure he’s ever been this high, so close to the cold yellow sun that he could almost reach out and touch it. 

Feeling his joy, Suryth cups his wings and Lorenz follows his lead, leaning hard on the stirrup until the tailfin curves sharply, sending them into a corkscrew. Lorenz laughs and sucks in air so cold it burns, like a taste of _between_ knitting itself into his lungs. He cocks his heel just _so_ to bring them out of the spin—and nothing happens. 

_Fuck_. He jerks and wriggles his boot, a little dizzy now, trying to look back down the length of Suryth’s tail. And then he sees the problem. The lines have gotten tangled in the hard, bony points of his spine, locking the tailfin in place. 

<< _I’ve got it_ >> he says, reaching back. His head spins, a little—the corkscrew has unraveled itself, and Suryth is trying to find his way to an easy glide, but without full control of his steering the movement is rocky, a coracle billowed up on plumes of riotous ocean waves. Lorenz lets out all his breath, trying to lengthen his body as he leans back, twisting, reaching…

The air is rushing past in the wrong direction now. It tears at his exposed skin, at Suryth’s wings as they struggle to maintain control. Suryth’s tail jerks hard to the left, trying to make up the difference, and the leadline moves further out of reach. Lorenz bites out a curse. 

<< _Suryth, hold!_ >>

<< _Cannot_ >> comes the reply, bitten-off, frantic. Suryth is panicking, feeling the edges of Lorenz’s fear. They’re still very, very high up, but falling, graceless and uncoordinated as Suryth scrambles to regain control. His writhing only makes it worse. With a lash of fire across his cheek, Lorenz feels one of the lines snap under the pressure, and then they’re truly in freefall, the leather tailfin whipping uselessly like a torn sail in the breeze. Suryth bugles his alarm, but the sound is lost in the open sky. << _Cannot, Lorenz, cannot cannot cannot—_ >>

To free himself of his saddle-braces is a death sentence, but he has no other choice. Lorenz reaches down and frees his right boot of the stirrup entirely, tears open the buckle on the strap holding his thigh secure. With the remnants of the leadline clenched between his teeth and his heart in his throat, eyes streaming with tears at the wind’s ice-cold savagery, he twists until his left leg is crooked beneath him, right foot braced against the saddlehorn. The position makes his hips scream, but he digs his teeth in and uses the saddleback to drag himself as far along as he can, pressed flat to Suryth’s shoulders by the wind. 

Their fall is deafening. He is buffeted from all sides by the uncontrolled flapping of Suryth’s wings, and part of him is grateful that he can no longer see the ground. The only thing in his line of vision is the remaining tacking line, twisted in a simple loop around a single spinal protrusion—the smallest mistake, and yet fatal in the wrong moment.

_Don’t be afraid. Just reach. Reach, you’re so close, you’re nearly there—_

His gloved finger latches around the line at the same moment that a flash of brilliant gold comes screaming across his line of sight. Claude and Fajr have come to their aid. But he has no time to hail him, or to imagine what impossible stunt Claude could pull to get them out of this. He _yanks_ , the lead comes free in his hand, and Suryth’s tailfin is flung out in a perfect extension. 

Lorenz can _feel_ the echo of stability travel through Suryth’s body like a wave. His wings extend fully, and Lorenz is nearly thrown from his back at the abrupt softening of their descent. Only a quick grab for the saddlehorn keeps him in place, left arm flung out and keeping the leadline taut and away from his body. 

They’re closer to the ground than he’d even realized. Heart jammed in his throat, the strain of the leadline cutting into his hand despite his riding glove, Lorenz leans back as hard as he can and watches as Leicester Weyr flies up to meet them. Closer. _Closer…_

The warm updraft billowing from the eyrie’s face expands beneath them like the rising sun, and Suryth screams for the thrill of it as he rockets skyward again like an arrow shot from a bow. Lorenz yells with him because he can. Because he’s _alive._ Glowing, golden, Fajr blinks out of _between_ to their right, and when Lorenz looks for him Claude is laughing, fist held up in celebration. They’re too far and the wind too fierce to hear, but Lorenz can feel the sharp pressure of Claude’s relief like a sympathetic knife between the ribs. 

They soar together. The wind ripping through his teeth, singing under Suryth’s wings, a song he’ll never grow tired of. Fajr, larger and sleeker, keeps to their side and behind by half a dragonlength, the precise position of a Wingsecond. Whenever Lorenz looks behind him to check the leadline in his grip, he can see Claude there, dark curls framed by the elastic beat of Fajr’s immense wingspan. It’s a race, but not a race—a celebration, a shout of triumph. 

Suryth dives, testing his arm, and they skim a hair's breadth above the lake. His wingtips trail across the mirror-calm surface, leaving white plumes of foam in their wake. If Lorenz weren’t clinging to the leadline by a thread, he would dip down and let his hand slice the water, but instead he watches the dark stone-blue turn to fragrant green as they slip up the hill and land at last, caught up in the momentum of it as Suryth tumbles and rolls to a stop in the tall grass. 

“LORENZ!”

A massive gust catches his hair and Lorenz props himself up on his elbows, breathless and giddy, to watch as Fajr hoves to a ground-shaking landing. Claude flings himself out of the saddle and runs to him, half-falling, to kneel clumsy at his side. 

“Lorenz, seven hells, are you all right? We thought for sure you’d be grounded—why didn’t you go _between_?”

“The lines got tangled,” Lorenz gasps. His face is aflame, windburnt to what is surely a terribly unflattering shade of red, and he’s shaking like his skeleton is trying to climb free of his body, but he’s _alive_ . Incredibly, impossibly alive. “I couldn’t—there wasn’t time to form a clear picture. If we’d gone _between_ like that I don’t know if we’d have come out of it again.”

“That was some fucking incredible flying.” Claude seizes his upper arms and Lorenz allows it, is _grateful_ for it. Even though he’s on the ground he feels like he’s about to fly apart, and even digging his fingers into the soft loamy earth isn’t enough to steady him. “I don’t know if I could have come out of that alive, if it were me.”

“I can’t believe that we did. That we _are_.” If his iron self-control were any softer, Lorenz thinks he might embarrass himself and be sick. But slowly his trembling subsides, and his breathing eases, and he finds his way back to earth in the verdant light of Claude’s dazzling eyes. 

🐉🐉🐉

The next Pass is beginning. The dragons feel it, and are restless; their riders feel it from _them_ and are running hot-blooded, snappish and quick to answer small offenses. Lorenz is used the tumult of fear and remembered pain, and lets it ride through him. He is hardly perfect, but the rest of the Weyr is on tenterhooks by comparison—all but one. 

In the months since Claude’s arrival, he’s integrated himself flawlessly into the rhythms of Leicester Weyr. He makes himself available, but does not push, taking on any task laid in front of him, no matter how small, and so he earns the respect of the Weyrfolk and dragonriders alike. Even Leonie, who had been suspicious at first, has come to like him so much that she invites him and Fajr to test out more of her strange, newfangled inventions intended to assist in the fighting of Thread. 

To Lorenz, he has become indispensable. Practically a Wingleader in his own right, even though riding a queen will keep him from flying in their ranks when the time comes. Instead he will captain the ground crews, wielding cannisters full of flammable gas to scorch any Thread that makes it through their airborne fellows. 

Or at least, he will if he agrees to it. Lorenz has yet to ask him. He’s been putting it off, and he’s not sure why. Claude has proven time and again that he’ll tackle any challenge Lorenz throws his way, hopping to meet each gauntlet with a grim, determined cheer that Lorenz finds refreshing. He has no reason to be nervous.

He mulls it over as he untacks Suryth by himself after a solo flight, most of it spent practicing maneuvers with the new and improved stirrup-lines. These are leaded wire instead of leather, and they ride close to Suryth’s back, affixed to eyelets drilled into his crest spines. Since they’re sturdier and more difficult to break, they remain in place all the time, hitching to the stirrup only when Lorenz is riding him. It makes tacking and untacking him much easier, at least, and he’s hefting the saddle off by himself despite its weight when a throat is cleared behind his back and he hears Claude say, 

“You sent for me?”

“Ah! There you are. Yes, I did.” Lorenz grunts out a thank-you as Claude hurries over to take the saddle’s other side and heft it onto its rack for oiling. “I have a request to make of you.”

“Anything,” Claude says. He plants his hands on his hips and waits with a patient expression, not a trace of pre-Threadfall restlessness showing on his face. 

“We weren’t expecting to have a queen to lead the ground crews this year,” Lorenz explains. “Ignatz and Victoriath have been training for it, but they’re really much better in the sky. It would be a great load off my mind if you would agree to take that mantle on yourself.”

“Lorenz,” Claude laughs, “thank you for the formal request, but I was already planning on it. I was going to ask you about it in the next day or two, when you were feeling more yourself.”

Lorenz blinks at him over the saddle rack. “Beg pardon?”

“We’re all a bit jumpy, yeah? It’s fine, it’s normal. You just seem… the opposite. It’s kind of terrifying, actually.” Claude’s friendly twinkle fades from his eye and he comes around the end of the rack to meet him head-on. “You’ve barely spoken to anyone in the last few days unless it was to issue an order. Are you doing all right?”

“I… didn’t realize.” Lorenz colors slightly. “I didn’t mean to neglect anyone—”

“Hey, it’s fine, it’s not a criticism. Everyone deals with the jitters in different ways.” Claude cocks his head, emerald gaze razing him from head to toe as efficiently as any dragon. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Your question…?”

“If you were doing all right.”

“Ah. As well as can be expected, I suppose.” Lorenz glances over his shoulder to where Suryth is curled in the sand, basking in the last rays of sunlight streaming over the face of the Weyr. He’s awake, but just barely, the smallest thread of consciousness still linking them together. He sends Lorenz a little pulse of _warm-comfort-succor-home_ and Lorenz calms. “I am nervous, I admit. We’ve trained all year, but…”

“But what?” 

He shakes his head. “I was never meant to be a Weyrleader. I’ve risen to the occasion as required, but managing the day-to-day tasks of the Weyr is one thing. To lead my riders into battle… that is an entirely different beast.” His hands tremble a little, and he busies himself with removing his riding gloves and massaging the stiffness of flight from his knuckles. “Last year we lost half our Weyr _between_ to a grievous mistake. I couldn’t bear it if I…” _If I failed the Weyr_ , he doesn’t say. 

Claude seems to hear him anyway. “You won’t,” he says. He takes Lorenz’s hand and holds it firmly. “What happened then… it wasn’t normal. It _shouldn’t_ have happened at all. If Monica hadn’t challenged Judith’s authority on the eve of Threadfall… but there’s no point in _what ifs_. Circumstances are different now. That’s all.”

“I’m sure she would scold me for the mess I’ve made of her Weyr, if she were here,” Lorenz jokes weakly. 

“Oh, no doubt. She was visiting Almyra Weyr when I impressed Fajr, did you know that?”

“You met her?”

“In the flesh. Well, briefly. She was just as impressive in person as the stories say.”

“She was.” Lorenz finally gathers the wherewithal to grip Claude’s hand in return, settling into the memory of his former Weyrleader. “She would have liked to know you as you are now, I think.”

“As I am now?” Claude echoes playfully. His glittering smile is impossible to look away from. “And how is that, Weyrleader Lorenz?”

“Competent. Kind. Hardworking.” Lorenz speaks as plainly as he knows how, unable to let this precious moment of connection slip by without making Claude understand how much he’s come to mean to him. “An impressive leader in your own right.”

“All right, all right. If you’re about to start talking nonsense again about how I should be Weyrleader instead of you—”

“I wasn’t, since I know you’d only shrug me off, no matter how true it is.” Lorenz smiles, earnestly this time; he no longer bears a grudge against Claude, if only because he’s refused time and again to step forcibly into Lorenz’s shoes. The truth is no longer a bitter sip of klah, but something sweet against the tongue. Claude would be a better Weyrleader than Lorenz by far, he’s just too damned humble to accept it. 

“You know,” Claude says, in a deceptively conversational tone, “circling back, you shouldn’t feel ashamed to be nervous. There have been studies… Scholars suggest that losing a large portion of a Weyr can have psychological impacts beyond the norm. Grief is a difficult creature to manage on its own, but Wingriders share a mental and emotional bond with each other, even if it’s not as noticeable as the bond between a dragon and their rider.” His grip on Lorenz’s hand remains, preventing him from pulling away even if he wished to. “I can’t imagine what it was like, feeling them all go _between_ at once, and then… never coming back.”

Lorenz drops his eyes. It was horrible; is perhaps even more horrible in his patchy memory. He and Suryth could have very well followed the rest of them to their deaths, if it weren’t for his injury. A breath too slow, the shock of feeling Huareth wink out of existence, and then the hot agony of Thread as it scored Suryth’s tail and caught the edge of Lorenz’s cheek as he turned mid-air to see where Judith had gone. All he had seen was empty sky, black clouds, the heavy red glow of the blood moon overhead as it shed its horrible writhing burden upon the ground. 

“But that’s enough of that.” Claude’s hand squeezes around his own, sharply, and Lorenz is released, feeling the loss in a strange, lingering way like the threat of a blade pressed to his neck. “I’m happy to lead the ground crews, obviously. We’re at your disposal.”

“Thank you,” Lorenz says. Clinging to the tattered remnants of his composure, he turns away to pick up a bottle of oil. His tack isn’t going to clean itself. 

🐉🐉🐉

In the boiling rush of chaos the last night before Threadfall, Lorenz doesn’t sleep. The tension in the Weyr is at a fever pitch. Riders check and triple check their gear, one eye always to the sky. Civilians are busy with their own preparations, hammering metal shutters over windows, checking the valves on their fire canisters, running through drills in the streets. Most of the Weyr will be under the cover of the eyrie, its sharp rock face jutting out over the keep like an enormous lean-to, but better to be overprepared than the alternative. 

Suryth is impressively calm, but it does little to anchor Lorenz’s anxiety. He’s finally retreated to their roost, the same humble cavern they’ve had since he first impressed. It would have been more than acceptable for them to move into the Weyrleader’s eyrie toward the top of the cliff, after the events of last year, but he prefers this smaller nest with its homey sand-strewn floor, its view of the path down the slope to the lake. In the morning the sun bakes the entire cliff like a warm oven and he’ll slip out of bed while Suryth still slumbers, sitting on the claw-scored lip of the cave with his legs dangling over the edge and a cup of hot klah in his hands, watching the day break over the distant mountains. 

Tonight all thoughts of the view are far from his mind. He paces like a caged animal across the warm sand, ignoring Suryth’s curled form as he goes over drills and flight formations in his head. He _had_ been doing it in his office, but was shooed out by Leonie and Ignatz and told to get an hour or so of shuteye before flying out. 

As if he’s capable of sleep right now. He rubs his hands up and down his arms as though to ward off a chill, even though the day’s warmth still lingers in the eyrie’s bedrock. Tonight is the culmination of a year of hard work, of endless failures, of experiments and test flights and battle formations practiced so many times he could recite them in his sleep. Tonight is their proving ground. If he fails tonight, he doesn’t only fail himself—he fails Suryth, fails Claude, fails the Weyr. If they fail, they die. And the rest of the Weyrholds with them. 

_ <<We will not fail.>> _ Suryth’s voice reverberates calmly in his mind, smooth and softly familiar. A voice he’s had in his head since he impressed at nearly sixteen years old. _ <<We will lead them to victory, tonight and every night after that, until the threat has been dealt with.>> _

“You sound so sure.” He wishes he had Suryth’s confidence. With slumped shoulders, Lorenz goes to him, leaning his forehead against the smooth, hard scales of Suryth’s shoulder. Muscle flexes under hide, and he is enveloped in warmth as Suryth cranes his head around to huff hot brimstone breath against his back. _ <<What if we’re not meant to do this?>> _

_ <<Who is ‘meant’ to do anything? You do not believe in destiny.>> _

_ <<Maybe not. But there are certain paths laid out for us in this world, Suryth. Highways carved so deeply into stone that deviating from them is… dangerous.>> _

_ <<Your human paths are irrelevant>> _ comes Suryth’s unimpressed reply. He nudges Lorenz with his snout, sending him staggering in the sand. _ <<We are not humans. We are dragonrider. We fly where we please and fight for our Weyr. That is all.>> _

Fueled by nerves, Lorenz longs to argue, but he is distracted from it by a frisson of alarm—no, not alarm, _awareness_ , moving through Suryth and into his own body like lightning. He turns to the mouth of the cavern, squinting through the dark for a glimpse of the bloody red sky that will signal Threadfall’s imminent arrival. But instead there’s a rush of wind and the night is swallowed up by gleaming gold as Fajr swoops in out of the darkness and perches politely at the lip of the cave. Claude slides down her shoulder to the sand and dusts himself off. 

“Er, hi. Sorry to drop in unexpectedly.”

Lorenz relaxes, ignoring the slight tension in Suryth’s frame at having their territory so boldly encroached upon. “It’s no trouble. Is there something I can do for you?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right, that’s all.” Claude comes forward a few more paces and stops, hands on his hips and eyes everywhere but Lorenz’s face. He’s already dressed in his battle gear: hardened leather plate treated with resin to keep the Thread out, chainmail over that, metal greaves and gauntlets that clink softly when the plates shift together. He’s left his helmet strapped to the resin-treated saddle Fajr wears. Unlike her rider, she seems calm: her eyes whirl a slow, pale evergreen color, and she’s tucked up as small as she can make herself in the mouth of the cave. Which, as it turns out, isn’t small at all—she’s a good dragonlength longer than Suryth, with a wingspan to match. But he appreciates the effort. 

“I am… as well as can be expected.” Lorenz eyes his own battle gear, hanging on its stand. “I was persuaded to try and get a bit of rest this evening, but I’m afraid sleep is out of the question.”

“I know what you mean.” A shadow of a smile touches the side of Claude’s mouth—nothing like his usual sparkling good cheer, but enough to ease the weight dragging Lorenz’s shoulders down. “Say, if you’re not going to sleep, want some help with your gear? It’s a bit tough to get on by yourself, I discovered.”

Lorenz hadn’t even thought of that. He’s kept his gear in good condition, of course, polishing it often and helping Leonie fit it for leading the Weyr into battle; but he hasn’t put it on properly since last Threadfall, a year ago. He clears his throat. “Ah—yes, that would be most welcome.”

He fumbles a bit as he changes into sturdy wool shirt and trousers, thick and warm to withstand the stinging cold of _between_ , but Claude politely turns his back to give him privacy. When Lorenz looks for him afterwards, he’s standing a bit away, facing Fajr with his head cocked slightly as though listening to a voice only he can hear.

 _ <<Fajr is nervous>> _ Suryth says unexpectedly. Lorenz jumps. 

_ <<Nervous? She is a powerful queen, with an excellent rider—perhaps the best. What does she have to fear?>> _

_ <<This is her first Threadfall>> _ comes the even response. Lorenz’s stomach twists in sympathy. 

“I’m decent,” he calls instead of replying, and Claude turns around with an easy smile as though nothing is amiss. Just another day in the Weyrleader’s office, heads bent together as they pour over maps and strategy. 

“That you are, Weyrleader, that you are.” Claude strides to the rack on the wall and lifts the heavy leather cuirass from its perch. “Let’s start with this.”

Despite the heavy gear and the many straps that buckle and snap into place, Claude is swift and gentle with the task. It’s… strangely intimate. They have grown close in the months since Claude’s arrival, but this is the closest they’ve ever been, physically speaking. Lorenz swallows and keeps his eyes forward, above Claude’s head as the other man fixes his chainmail into place. Of course, that line of sight has him looking directly at Fajr. Usually she ignores him, a habit he’d once taken offense at but slowly grew accustomed to; but currently she’s looking directly at him, eyes whirling a slightly faster seafoam green. There’s a faint ringing in his ears, as if there’s something just out of range of hearing trying to get his attention. Lorenz holds his breath. 

“Hey,” Claude says, gently. “Relax. Breathe.” He stands back a bit, and Lorenz realizes he’s dressed completely, except for his usual riding gloves and the purple scarf he’ll wear beneath his helmet to keep his hair from frizzing. “You’ve got this.”

Lorenz blinks at him. The ringing in his ears fades away. “I know,” he hears himself say, brittle and fearless—it’s an obvious lie, but worth the telling for the way Claude laughs at him. 

“Good. I’m glad to hear it.” Claude clasps his arm briefly and steps away, smiling at the ground. “I’ll just leave you be, then.”

“Claude—wait.” Lorenz takes a breath and looks again to Fajr. She’s relaxed a little, but is still taking care not to infringe too much on Suryth’s territory; and she’s still looking at him. “Are _you_ all right? You and Fajr? Is there anything you need that I can give?”

Claude looks up at him, eyes clear and green as the depths of the sea off the coast of Derdriu. “I am… anxious,” he admits, “as we all are. But the only remedy for that is action, and we’ll see that soon enough.”

“And Fajr?” Lorenz presses gently.

Claude sighs. “She is… uneasy. I think it’s just nerves, and the newness of everything…”

Something is prodding at the back of Lorenz’s mind, demanding to be found out, but try as he might he can’t unearth it. He opens his mouth to deliver a rote piece of comfort, as he’s done for all the other dragonriders under his command, when Suryth’s voice stops him. 

_ <<She will rise soon. She is restless.>> _

Lorenz’s mouth drops open. “Oh.”

“Oh, what?”

“Erm.” Lorenz looks from Fajr to Claude and back again. Of course. Threadfall often triggers a mating flight in queens, especially those who have not yet risen. His stomach drops like a stone. If Fajr rises, then there will be no question as to the leadership of the Weyr. Freith will fly her, and like it or not Hilda will find herself Weyrwoman after all. Such is the tradition of a mating flight. He tries to swallow past the disappointment to speak. “It’s… it is nothing. Suryth was saying something and I got distracted.”

Dragon expressions are nothing like human ones, but Suryth’s bright violet glare tells the whole story. _ <<Liar.>> _

_ <<I will tell him>> _ Lorenz says quickly, before Suryth can take matters into his own… claws… and tell Claude himself. Such interactions are rare, but not unheard of. He would not put it past Suryth to speak to Claude himself, breach of etiquette or no. _ <<Once tonight is over. He is worried enough as it is. Let us not distract them further.>> _

Suryth grunts and exhales hot hair, derisive, but turns his head away from them. As Lorenz watches, Suryth gets to his feet and approaches the golden interloper. 

“Is everything… okay?” Claude asks hesitantly. “With them?”

“They’re fine.” Lorenz narrows his eyes at Suryth’s back. _ <<Suryth.>> _

There is no reply, but Suryth extends his head to Fajr, lower than her own by virtue of his smaller stature and in deference to her position. His nostrils flare and exhale. A friendly greeting. At his side, Claude relaxes. 

“As long as you’re sure,” he says. 

Lorenz reaches out, meaning to touch his shoulder or his back in comfort, and drops it again. He should not get used to such casual touches between them. Traditionally, the riders of a queen and her mate will form similar bonds of a romantic and physical nature, the link with their dragons extending to their human partners. Hilda, despite her professed laziness, will be a good match for Claude. He must take care not to get in the way. 

_ <<You are a fool>> _ Suryth tells him in no uncertain terms as Lorenz collects the rest of his flight gear. _ <<We fly where we please. Have you already forgotten?>> _

Lorenz ignores him, and ignores the hard lump of regret lodged beneath his breastbone. Threadfall is almost here. 

🐉

When the Blood Moon’s first gory rays begin to stain the sky, Leicester Weyr lifts into flight. Below, the towns ring their warning bells, summoning civilians indoors and sending the ground crews out into their formations. From his position in the sky, Lorenz can see the land roll out beneath them like a dark carpet, glistening with the lights of the holds. 

To the north, Riegan and Goneril stand strong, their fires mere pinpricks against the night. To the east, Gloucester, his home, carved into the bare rocky hills that rise from Leicester’s fertile soil like the bald caps of giants buried long ago. To the south, Ordelia and Edmund hold the southern border, the teeth of enormous snow-capped mountains marking the dead zone between Leicester Weyr’s territory and Adrestia’s. When this Pass completes, he will be sending a junior Wing south to comb the rocky mountain slopes in conjunction with a Wing from Adrestia Weyr, ensuring any Thread that falls there perishes of cold before reaching the lowlands. 

_ <<It is coming.>> _ Suryth still sounds painfully calm, wings extended as the last dregs of the day’s warmth hold them steady in the sky. Even through his protective gear, Lorenz can feel the heat building in Suryth’s chest, a hot, poisonous mixture of gases releasing and combining in preparation for the battle ahead. He lays a hand on Suryth’s neck, feeling the rippling muscle, heel steady in its stirrup. 

Overhead, the clouds go thin and stretched like cotton fiber, exposing stars and a dull red sky, the moon a bloody smile beyond. It stains the heavens with its light, a small sun in its own right. Lorenz can practically feel its weight in the sky, heavy and writhing, turgid with infestation and plague. He grips the saddle horn with one hand and lifts the other high, striking the flinted torch to light against Suryth’s hide. To either side of him, the Wings of Leicester Weyr fan out in perfect form, dragon after dragon after dragon. Together they stretch across the whole of Leicester, waiting. Watching.

In the distant south the signal-fire blooms like a glorious spark at the highest peak at the very edge of their borders. Adrestia Weyr has moved to action. Lorenz drops his hand, and together Leicester moves as one. 

He holds his breath against _between_. Counts the seconds in his head. The southernmost reaches of Leicester territory are familiar to him, whether night or day, but still he waits and sweats for five long seconds before they blink out again into open sky. He turns his head right, then left, watching the ripple effect as each dragon emerges. At his left flank, Hilda raises her hand in acknowledgement before peeling away, taking her Wing with her. To the right, Leonie does the same. Then it’s just him and his own wing, Ignatz and Mari and all the rest, following him to battle.

In the last precious moments of breathless silence, all the pent-up terror in Lorenz’s bones seems to bleed away, leaving him cold and empty like a pitcher of water poured upon the ground. In its place is razor-sharp focus. It tingles in the back of his head, surging between him and Suryth—he swears he’s never felt so connected to his dragon before this moment. 

Then the first wave is upon them: skeins of wriggling silver falling like clumps of deadly rain. His focus clicks forward into action, smooth as the shift of his heel in its stirrup, and he barks a silent order that Suryth transmits cleanly down the line as they rise up to meet it. Suryth’s jaws open and flame belches forth, white-hot; the radiant heat of it scorches the exposed lower half of Lorenz’s face but he barely feels it. In the dark, hungry twisting silver turns to char and ash, drifting harmlessly to the ground far below like blackened snow. 

There is no rhyme or reason to the fall of Thread, but they find a rhythm anyway, weaving it from smoke and acrid flame, the beat of great leathery wings in the red-stained dark. Slowly, they fall back; the ragged edges of the blood moon’s slough are eaten away by fire from above, and down below, when he chances a look, Lorenz can see the ground crews of Edmund Hold hard at work. The scraps of Thread that make it through their line may be negligible in number, but even a single worm can spell doom for an entire season’s worth of harvest. 

Gradually, Threadfall thins and grows patchy as the moon’s orbit drags it further north. Their wings break farther apart, following the silver skeins with brutal efficiency; when they’re close enough, Suryth’s telekinetic call warns the Weyr of their impending arrival. At the very top of the eyrie, Leicester’s signal fire blooms golden in the dark, sending word to Faerghus to prepare.

Lorenz is so intent on the next wave, and the next, and the next, that when he blinks up and sees a clear black sky, lit by the smaller, silver moon as it peeks through the fluffy shreds of cloud around them, he can’t believe it’s over. He sends word to Leonie and Hilda through Suryth, and receives acknowledgements in return. Western Wing, secure. Eastern Wing, secure. They have chased Thread away from their borders and lived to tell the tale. 

_ <<Casualties?>> _ he asks, scarcely daring to breathe. 

_ <<None>> _ comes the decisive reply. Then, warmly, _ <<Fajr reports all clear on the ground. Two injuries, not serious.>> _

Lorenz shuts his eyes. Claude is safe. It breaks over him like a sunrise, warm and lingering, and he clutches the saddlehorn as he tries to catch his breath. Suryth feels it, and does not mock him for it, but reflects it back to him: a mirror of joy and stark relief. 

_ <<He will come to you>> _ Suryth adds, as they turn into a slow, spiraling dive. Behind them, dawn is touching the snow-capped ridges of the Oghma Mountains, pouring soft velvet-pink light across the eyrie’s face like a fresh coat of paint. Lorenz strips his helmet off and lets the wind stream through his hair and into his eyes, blessedly cool.

_ <<What does that mean?>> _

_ <<Wait>> _ Suryth says, frustratingly cryptic. _ <<He will come.>>_

__

🐉

There is much to do in the aftermath of Threadfall. Injuries to see to, tallies to count, maneuvers to run over, strategy to pick apart. Lorenz delivers criticism and praise in equal measure: his riders stand tall to receive the former, and smile and shuffle their feet under the latter, glowing with pride despite the exhaustion of a full night’s work. And tomorrow they will do it all over again. So when his messages have been delivered, and he’s seen to it that everyone has their fill of breakfast and been sent off to bed, Lorenz retraces his steps to the eyrie and reaches for the saddle oil. 

He’s halfway through working another layer of resin into his saddle’s stubborn hide when he senses he’s not alone. Suryth is not here, no doubt still feasting on a well-deserved kill down in the cattle fields, and their roost feels starkly empty without him. 

“I thought we were supposed to be resting,” Claude says, making himself known before Lorenz can grow lethargically from _concerned_ to _alarmed_ . Claude’s heavy riding boots scuff the sand as he approaches and drops to his haunches. He looks tired, but he’s smiling, the flush of victory clinging to him like a particularly intractable perfume. “This doesn’t look very much like _resting_ , Lorenz.”

“Are you here to scold me for taking care of my gear?” Lorenz tuts. He recorks the heavy glass bottle—its contents, distilled from a particular type of tree that only grows in Brigid, are too precious to risk wasting—and sets it side, scrubbing traces of resin from his fingers. “Or is there something else I can do for you, von Riegan?” He thinks of Suryth’s notice—his warning, perhaps?—but finds he doesn’t have the courage to ask for clarification. 

“Nah, you were right the first time.” Claude reaches out, bare-handed, and settles his grip comfortably on Lorenz’s shoulder. Lorenz is out of his armor at least, but the heavy wool under-tunic he wears keeps him from fully appreciating the warmth of that touch. Not that he should be appreciating it. Of course not. “You need to rest, Weyrleader.”

Lorenz scoffs, follows the motion to half-heartedly shake him off. “There is still work to do—”

“There will _always_ be work to do. Sometimes, rest is more important.” Not to be dissuaded, Claude grips him more firmly, practically pinning him in place where he kneels in the sand. Lorenz shifts his weight slightly, heart stammering in his chest. “You led us to victory tonight, Lorenz,” he says, the soft prickle of his voice like the barest whisper of a kiss to the nape of his neck. Lorenz shivers. “You have earned respite tenfold.”

Lorenz stares down at the saddle under his hands. His arms had been too tired to lift it onto the rack, so it lays on a blanket on the ground, hardly the worse for wear. Thread hadn’t fallen near enough to score them, let alone sink its hungry teeth into his tacking, or Suryth’s sturdy, scaley hide. But the rhythm of cleaning and oiling and polishing feels… necessary. The rote repetition sinks into his mind, calming the frantic circles of its pacing. “When I finish this,” he says, keenly aware of the dry rasp of his voice, the ache of sleeplessness behind his eyelids. 

Claude hums. He’s still smiling at the edge of Lorenz’s periphery, but the tone of his voice suggests he isn’t pleased with that answer. “What do I have to do to convince you otherwise?”

He wishes desperately that Suryth were here. Technically he can feel him, faintly, like the _plink_ of a pebble dropping into a still pool, sending its silken ripples across the surface of the water from a great distance. But it’s not the same as having him _here_ in the room, his lean bulk a lavender smear of paint against the shadowed canvas of their roost. The hot smokey firestone smell of him, undercut with sand and the tang of the sweetgrass he likes to roll in when the day is fine and warm, and the earth is like the inside of a bread oven. 

But Suryth is not here. Only Claude is, warm and sturdy at his side, hand on his shoulder and breath in his ear, waiting for him to say something. 

“Part of me can’t believe it worked,” he hears himself say at last. He stares at his own pale hands, soot-stained, one wrist rubbed raw where his glove rode up and trapped itself above the plates of his gauntlet. It feels like the hands he’s looking at belong to someone else. “I’m just trying to… settle myself. If I try to sleep now, my brain will keep spinning and spinning, looking for the flaws in our execution.”

“What if I help?” Claude says. He picks up an extra cloth, stained reddish-brown with the residue of old leather polish, and uncorks the bottle of resin. “Many hands make light work. And I’ll be honest—I could use the company.”

As if Lorenz could ever say no to him. He nods, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear, and bends again to the task. 

_He will come to you_ , Suryth had said. How had he known? Lorenz glances over the hump of the saddle horn, watching the furrow in Claude’s brow as he works the resin into the cured hide with a practiced, patient hand. Had Fajr said something? Had some of Lorenz’s own softheartedness leaked through, somehow? 

Slowly, the cogs of post-Thread worries grind backward into worrying over Claude. Over Fajr, whose moody restlessness could pose the end of everything he’s spent a year building. He should be grieving the loss, but he’s too tired to be upset about it right now. His position, his title… they were always fleeting. Always secondary to his service to the Weyr. He has always— _almost_ always—believed they would rest better on Claude’s shoulders. If there is any sting to the notion, it is from the disappointment of knowing that any connection between them can only ever be a pleasant fantasy. 

What is good for the Weyr is good for Lorenz. That is of paramount importance. 

A soft jangle of the bell at the door signifies the entrance of another person, dragging Lorenz from his fugue state as he loses himself in the rhythm of polishing. Lysithea enters, drawn and quiet—she was with the ground crews, he recalls, can see it written in the lines of soot and tear tracks down her face where her eyes watered against the smoke and heat. She’s carrying a covered tray, which she bears past them to the low stone table near his bed. 

“Ah. Just in time.” Claude wipes his hands on the rag and stands, slowly, wincing and groaning as stiff joints stretch and pop back to wakefulness. “C’mon, Weyrleader. Breakfast. I know you didn’t eat anything in the dining hall.”

Lorenz wants to protest—the saddle is as yet unfinished—but he catches a whiff of the sausage and fluffy whipped eggs Raphael makes so perfectly, and his growling stomach speaks for him. “Thank you, Lysithea,” he says, making sure to touch her shoulder as she passes. She conjures up a tired smile and a nod, the barest salute, before slipping out again. 

“She’s old enough to be flying in one of the junior Wings,” Claude remarks, following him to the table like a stray puppy. Lorenz can’t recall off the top of his head if Claude had eaten earlier, so he shoves him a piece of toast dredged in butter and falls to. “Her and Cyril.”

“When they impress,” Lorenz says behind his napkin, “they shall. They’ve certainly trained enough for it.”

Understanding dawns in Claude’s eyes. He nibbles his toast for a bit, quietly, before setting it down and folding his elbows on the table to watch Lorenz eat. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about. About Fajr.”

The food turns to clay in Lorenz’s mouth, thick and tasteless. Somehow he swallows, though it’s like forcing a small stone past his gullet, and he takes a sip of cold klah to cover it. “Yes?”

“The ground crews went great, and I’m certainly happy to stay there for the rest of this Pass if you want, but truthfully we felt a bit… superfluous. I was wondering if you’d be all right with us flying in one of the Wings. If you don’t think we’ll get in the way.”

 _Oh_. Lorenz carefully schools his face away from relief. His hand only shakes a little bit as he sets the cup down on the stone. “I suppose I’m not surprised—the two of you do tend to favor riskier maneuvers.”

“ _Is_ it risky?” Claude asks lightly. His eyes are keen and dazzling jewels—so bright Lorenz waits to see them swirl the way a dragon’s might. “Or do you not trust us to fly Thread?”

“It’s not that! Claude, honestly.” Offense pokes holes in his careful mask, and he glares at his breakfast companion over his fork. “All this time spent proving your worth a hundredfold, over and over again, and you still think I wouldn’t trust you with my life? With the livelihood of this Weyr?”

Claude has the grace to look marginally abashed. “Right. Sorry.”

“It’s not that I don’t think you can do it. But queens…” He pauses, working over his next words carefully in his head. “In Fódlan, queens very rarely fly in the Wings unless absolutely necessary. Judith and Huareth did, of course—they led two successful Passes before last year’s tragedy. Perhaps… perhaps that is why I am so reluctant.”

“Fajr and I trained in combat just like all the rest, back in Almyra Weyr.” Claude picks up his toast again and munches on it between words, trickling crumbs all over the tabletop. “We were Wingseconds, before we left.”

Lorenz starts. “I didn’t know that.”

“Didn’t seem prudent.” Claude smiles a knowing smile. “You have all the Wingleaders you need already. I was already an interloper—I didn’t want to intrude on the status quo.”

“Please. Your coming here at all disrupted the _status quo_.” Lorenz pushes his empty platter away and sighs. The food and conversation have done what his busy hands could not: he can feel weariness creeping up on him, dragging his eyelids down and coaxing a yawn to the back of his throat that he’s too slow to stifle. “If you are confident, I see no reason why you can’t fly tomorrow. My wing, so I can keep an eye on you.”

It’s meant partly in jest, but it comes out just a little skewed—Claude glances at him sideways and smirks, and Lorenz feels a blush come to his cheeks as he says, slyly, “Keep an eye on me, eh? You’re welcome to do that anytime, Weyrleader.”

Lorenz huffs and stands up from the table. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And _you_ are exhausted. You must sleep.” Claude grabs the dirtied dishes and collects them on the tray for removal. Too tired to mind his presence, Lorenz strips off his heavy tunic and falls into bed, only tangentially aware of Claude dousing the oil lamp before sleep takes him.

🐉🐉🐉

The next night comes swiftly, but Leicester Weyr is ready for it. Claude appears at Lorenz’s side a few hours before Threadfall to help him with his armor, and Lorenz permits it with a quiet kind of hopelessness—every touch, every quiet word exchanged between them, feels like a heavy coin tossed onto the scales of his self-control. For now, the balance remains. But it will only take a slight push in the right direction for him to tip over the edge. 

Suryth is quietly derisive, but says nothing, not even when Lorenz loses patience and invites his criticism. Though they fly without issue, the thread of tension between them is palpable—it lays beneath every order Suryth issues over the course of the night, and Lorenz _knows_ it’s foolish, knows that his own weakness is crippling the Wings under his command. But his longing is sharp and unavoidable, a naked dagger carried against his heart, and the best he can do is grit his teeth and shove it down and hope the consequences aren’t fatal. 

Leicester Weyr flies flawlessly almost to the very end. Threadfall is already beginning to grow thin, his heart lighter at the prospect of a new dawn, when Suryth lets out a malcontented grumble and surges sideways, against the pull of Lorenz’s heel. He hastens to keep up, craning his neck to see the threat—but all he can spy in the dimness is Suryth’s irate red eyes, spinning as he curves his neck and bugles a warning. 

Pale, washed-out gold shimmers against the night, and he feels the ripple of a command come through their link. Fajr, flying just below and to his left, is pushing back against his order. Lorenz rocks up onto his heels, trying to peer through the predawn grey to catch Claude’s eye, but Suryth peels off to the right and gives a shriek of disdain, narrowly avoiding a falling clump of Thread. 

_ <<What is going on?>> _ Lorenz demands. _ <<Higher, Wing forward, now!>> _

Suryth doesn’t reply, not in words—there is only a jumble of confusion and irritation, a brief flare of anger muffled under cotton-wool complacency. Lorenz twists in the saddle, scanning for Claude and Fajr. But they are nowhere to be seen, and Thread is still falling. Gritting his teeth, cold with fury, Lorenz spurs Suryth higher, above the layer of low-lying clouds, and focuses on his own flank even as confusion pings back and forth across the line. 

When they land in Leicester, weary and smoke-singed, he throws himself out of the saddle and goes immediately to where Fajr has just landed. Her eyes whirl frantically, a sickly yellow-green, and when Claude slides down her shoulder to the ground he’s already babbling apologies. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened. One second everything was fine, and then Fajr started acting up, bucking your orders—I’ve never felt anything like it.”

Lorenz seizes his upper arm in an iron grip just to get him to stand still and shut up. Claude’s goggles have been pushed up over his helmet and his eyes are wide and visibly frantic, sweat still dewy on his forehead and to either side of the bridge of his nose. “Claude, calm down,” he says, injecting steel into his voice. Incredibly, Claude goes still. “I believe you. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I—you do?” His shoulders sag with relief, and Lorenz flinches at how close Claude comes to crumbling into his arms. “She’s never, _ever_ done something like this before. And she won’t give me a straight answer when I ask—”

 _She is near her first mating flight_ , Lorenz thinks. He feels the resonance of truth in his mental bond with Suryth, now reforged and solid in the aftermath of Threadfall. “You will be on ground crew tomorrow eve,” he says aloud. Claude bows his head but does not argue. “Just to be safe. Nothing untoward happened tonight, but it very easily could have.”

“I understand, Weyrleader.” 

Lorenz drops his hand but doesn’t step away. Claude sounds so defeated. He cannot keep the truth from him any longer. “May I come to your roost, once I’ve seen to everyone?” he says, more softly. Less a Weyrleader, more a friend. Claude’s eyes lift to him, lit from within by surprise. 

“Of course. I’ll wait up for you.” He bows, brief but earnest, and turns to remount Fajr. In theory he should stay for debrief, but Lorenz lets him go. He’s borne enough humiliation tonight. 

When all his riders have been seen to and Suryth looked after, Lorenz climbs the Weyr to the cavern where Claude and Fajr roost. He’s been here a few times, but the immense arching ceiling and grandiose dais to Claude’s own living space still strikes a bit of awe in him. This had been Huareth’s roost, before Judith rose to Weyrleader—carved naturally by wind and rain, and then further adorned by human hands into a space fit for a queen dragon. There is minimal ornamentation—Claude is a simple, straightforward man—but walking through the human-sized doorway into the cathedral-sized chamber is very unlike his own humble lodging. 

Claude is waiting for him with some spiced klah and a drawn expression poorly masked beneath a ready smile. He’s changed out of his own armor, as has Lorenz, and even found time to bathe and push his hair back into some semblance of order. Still, anxiety clings to him like a noonday shadow as he offers Lorenz a seat on the low couch at the foot of his bed. 

“I was told you ate,” he says by way of greeting, “so I didn’t press the cooks for more than this; I hope that’s all right.”

“Of course, it’s lovely.” Lorenz accepts a cup and just holds it in his hands a moment, letting the warmth seep into him, steady him. Fajr is absent, likely still hunting with most of the other dragons. He reaches out a questing thread for Suryth, and gets _eat-feast-satiate_ in response. “Are you doing all right?”

“Fine,” Claude replies quickly. Then, sharp-edged: “ _I_ was not the one nearly scored by Thread thanks to someone else’s carelessness.”

“Ah. You saw that.” Lorenz grimaces. “It’s fine. We dodged it.” _Barely._ “And it wouldn’t have been the first time, anyway.”

Claude’s brows climb. “You’ve been scored before?”

“Suryth and I both, last year. You’ve seen his tail. I was caught, too.” With the klah held it his right hand, Lorenz puts his left to his collar, brushing away his hair and pulling his shirt low to reveal the long, glossy pink scars that adorn his clavicle. Claude hisses slightly in sympathy and Lorenz drops his hand. “It’s not as bad as it could have been. I’ve seen worse.”

“Still. It must have been painful.” Claude drops his head and sighs. “I’m sorry again, by the way.”

“It’s nothing you could have foreseen.” Lorenz clears his throat. “I… may have a theory, about why Fajr tried to take control of the Wing.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Suryth thinks… she may be close. To her time.” Lorenz feels himself flush a dull red at the topic of discussion, and latches onto that awkwardness rather than the hungry, possessive coil of jealousy seething in his stomach. “It wouldn’t be entirely out of the ordinary, if so. Queens tend to rise around the time of Threadfall. Increased hormones and so forth.”

“I see.” Claude’s fingers curl into his biceps, head bowed between them so that a single perfect curl springs loose from his crown of wild hair and glances against his forehead. “Well now I just feel like an idiot.”

Lorenz blinks. “Why?”

“Shouldn’t I have _known_? Or at least suspected?” Claude barks a laugh devoid of humor and stands abruptly, pacing back and forth across the dais. Lorenz follows him with his eyes, uncertain where this outburst will lead. “I watched Nanai go through this exact thing: mood swings, shifting appetite, growing snappish and territorial…”

“Nanai…?”

“The queenrider of Almyra.” Claude huffs and drops his hands to his hips, head tilted back to stare sightlessly at the ceiling. “She impressed the year after me. Everyone thought _she_ would be the one to have to leave, but Fajr was… a late bloomer, I guess. Fuck.”

“You are… experiencing some of this, then?” Lorenz ventures hesitantly. “The mood swings and so forth? I didn’t realize.”

“I thought it was just pre-Threadfall jitters. Same as everyone else.” Claude swears under his breath in Almyran and rounds on Lorenz, eyes alight in his ruddy face. “This won’t change anything between us, all right?”

“It… won’t? What do you mean?”

“ _You_ are still Weyrleader, no matter what happens.” Claude drags his hands through his hair, frantic, and drops his hands with an enormous exhale. “I wouldn’t take that from you, not like this. It isn’t fair.”

“It’s tradition,” Lorenz says numbly. How to explain that he doesn’t _care_ anymore, about who is Weyrleader and who is not? He only cares that soon, Fajr will take to the sky in a mating flight, and one of the Weyr’s bronzes or browns will fly her, and Claude will be united to them in heart and mind as fixed as any handfasting. “And you know Hilda will refuse the honor of promotion, so it will have to be you, Claude.”

Claude’s jaw tightens. “Hilda, eh?”

“It is the most likely scenario. Freith is our strongest, fastest bronze.”

“He is, but those are not the only qualities that cement a mating flight.” Claude’s posture softens then, and he cocks his head curiously like a dragonling eyeing an unsuspecting bug as it crawls across the ground, ready to pounce. “Will Suryth not fly?”

Lorenz barks a laugh. He can’t help it. “Suryth _cannot_ fly. Even if he had any hope of being a desirable mate for Fajr, with his missing tailfin he’s not nearly fast or nimble enough to keep up with her.”

“For being so forward-thinking in other ways, Lorenz, you sure like to fall back on the _blues aren’t as strong or fast or leaderly as the others_ argument.”

He can’t decipher Claude’s expression. He looks almost like a Mastercraftsman, peering down at the work of an apprentice for judgement. But Lorenz refuses to quail beneath that gaze, and he sits up straighter, hands still curled uselessly around the half-empty cup of klah. 

“It’s physical fact, Claude. Suryth is big for a blue, but Fajr is twice his size. Blues fly greens, and bronzes fly golds. That is the way of things.” He _does_ drop his eyes then, staring into his cup rather than into Claude’s strange expression. “It’s kind of you to speak of it as though such a thing is a possibility. But the leadership of this Weyr must go to whomever is strong enough and wise enough to lead it. And with a mature queen among their number, the dragons here will not deign to look in a blue’s direction.”

“I’m not—” Claude begins, and cuts himself off in frustration. “I wasn’t humoring you, Lorenz. I…”

Lorenz dares to look up. Claude is looking back, brow creased, lips pursed as though on the verge of saying something very difficult. Lorenz’s chest swells, choked with longing. He reads in him the same ache Lorenz carries in himself—but he cannot let him say it out loud. Not when everything—the very future of Leicester itself—rests upon his shoulders. 

“Thank you for the klah,” he says, and stands. He sets the cup down unfinished, hands trembling. “And for the counsel. I must retire, before the sun grows any higher in the sky—I will see you tonight.”

Claude nods, mouth bitten shut into an unhappy line. He does not stop him as he leaves. Lorenz focuses only on putting one foot in front of the other, down the twisting stairs to his own roost, where he crawls into bed still in his clothes and does not come out again for many hours. 

🐉🐉🐉

The next two nights of Threadfall are fairly unremarkable. Claude and Fajr return to the ground crews, sweeping up any traces of Thread that escape the jaws of Leicester Weyr; above, in the tangled mist of late summer clouds, Lorenz leads his dragonriders to victory again and again. The thrill of it is palpable among the Wings, but Lorenz cannot share in their jubilation. It’s clearer by the day that Fajr will soon rise, taking with her everything he’s worked for, everything he never expected to find at all. Claude avoids him, which is likely for the best. Putting on his own armor each evening is a more difficult task alone, but better to suffer it than to suffer the nearness of Claude’s hands, Claude’s breath, Claude’s smile: the promise of breaching a new horizon without the payoff. 

One midafternoon toward the end of the week, Lorenz is reviewing maps in his study when there’s a rap on the door and Hilda lets herself in without waiting for a reply. She looks tired, as do they all, but there’s a fire in her eyes he knows well. Hilda has come to give him a _talking-to._

“Lorenz Hellman Gloucester,” she begins, and oh, goddess, he’s scrambling to remember every little thing he’s done in the past few hours to try and unearth the reason for her upset. But he’d spent most of it sleeping off last night’s flight, so he comes up empty, and can only cringe back as she approaches, fists clenched and eyes flashing with a warpath’s fire. “I can’t belive you didn’t _say anything_.”

“Say anything… about what?”

“About Fajr! You _knew_ this was coming, and you didn’t even give Freith and me any time to leave the Weyr—”

“Leave the Weyr? What on earth are you talking about?”

“I don’t want him to fly her, of course!” she barks. She’s a good two heads shorter than he, but she stands on tiptoe to get in his face, one finger jabbing repeatedly into his ribs in accusation. “Neither does he, frankly, he’s almost as lazy as I am—we have no interest in being Weyrleader, or Weyrwoman, or—or whatever!”

“Even if that is the case, I fail to see what sending you away would have accomplished.”

“It happens all the time in other Weyrs! If a bronze or their rider isn’t suitable, they’re sent off to a sister Weyr until the mating flight is over. Ugh!” She throws up her hands and drops into the chair behind his desk where he’d been sitting a moment ago. He’s so shocked by her outburst that he doesn’t even complain when she swings her boots up on his desk and glares at him over their shiny, polished tips. “I get that we’re in the middle of Threadfall, but surely you could’ve spared me for _one_ night. I could have gone to Adrestia Weyr and swapped out with Linhardt or something.”

It’s not a bad idea—Linhardt’s green Cethleann is devoted to her mate, the feisty blue his partner Caspar rides, and she wouldn’t have given two stones whether or not Fajr was flying. He silently curses himself for not having through of it; but in the same moment he shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. If Freith weren’t here, Canth would fly her, or Virenth.”

“Suryth could do it!” Hilda bursts out, cutting to the chase. 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Lorenz’s chest clenches painfully and he turns away, bending over the map beneath her boots. “Get your feet off my desk, Goneril.”

“He could! At least give him the chance, Lorenz.”

“It’s not up to me!” Lorenz snaps. Envy and grief weave together in his chest and crackle through him like lightning as he rounds on her and all but yells in her face: “ _Blues don’t fly queens_!”

Hilda’s face drains of color briefly, her mouth popping open in surprise. Never once, in his entire year as Weyrleader, has Lorenz ever raised his voice to her, or to anyone. He immediately feels the hot sting of shame, and opens his mouth to apologize—but a swift rapping at the door interrupts him. 

“Lorenz, Hilda, come quick!” It’s Ignatz, puffing for breath, glasses fogged slightly from exertion. “Fajr’s rising.”

His heart stops, briefly; then restarts again, faster than before. Argument forgotten, Lorenz helps Hilda out of the chair and together they run through the halls at Ignatz’s heels, dodging riders and civilians alike until they come to the open courtyard. Already people are clustering on the ramparts, fighting each other for a good view—but they part readily for their Weyrleader and his second in command, heads bowed and elbows flung left and right to make way. 

At the apex of the keep wall, where it splits off to join with the eyrie, Claude stands alone, cheeks wind-burned, hair a tangle. His hands are white-knuckled on the stone, Lorenz sees as they get close enough—then his attention is torn away to the sky, where Fajr surges alone, riderless, glinting and golden and utterly beautiful. 

He’s never seen a queen’s mating flight, and he’s unprepared for the majesty of it. She soars with grace and power, reflecting the sun like a jewel held up to the throat of the open sky. “Beautiful,” he murmurs without thinking. 

Claude flinches at the sound of his voice and turns his way, eyes dark and vivid. “Lorenz…”

“Are you all right?” Lorenz asks, even though it’s quite clear that Claude is not himself. Claude’s nostrils flare and he scans over Lorenz briefly, his gaze like fire. Then he glimpses Hilda at Lorenz’s right shoulder and turns away. 

“Fine,” he grits out. 

Lorenz wishes he could touch him, hold him, help relieve some of the tension boiling through him like water left too long in the pot—but it is taboo to touch a queenrider when their dragon is rising, so he folds his hands behind his back and keeps his distance. “Would you like us to leave?” 

“No—stay.” Claude takes a deep breath and lets it out slow, a desperate bid to steady himself. “Both of you.”

So they stay. Fajr has only been in the air a few minutes, but already the browns and bronzes of Leicester have taken notice—they poke their heads out of their eyries, eyes whirling, eager for the chase. Shamir’s brown Canth is the first to take to the air. At Lorenz’s side, Hilda gasps, and Freith explodes out of the cliff immediately behind him. A touch slower, the shadow of Leonie’s Virenth leaps to the fray. And then the flight begins in earnest. 

It becomes clear very quickly that Fajr has no patience for her suitors. She stays well ahead of them, occasionally shrieking with fury and glee—on the ramparts, Claude shudders with each crow of victory, eyes hazy and half-lidded as though his mind is entirely with his dragon. A warm flush has risen to his skin, and his pupils are dark and heavy, lips parted as he breathes shallow and swift. Each turn she makes is reflected in him; he leans slightly to the left or right, as though keeping his balance on the deck of a ship that only he can see. 

Occasionally, Freith gets close, but whenever Lorenz thinks he’s about to catch her, Fajr surges forward again, or cuts into a dive that he cannot follow. Like a shimmering beacon she turns against the sun, blotting it out briefly—its rays gleam through her outstretched wings, and the shadow she casts passes over them with shocking nearness. Lorenz nearly ducks instinctively as she twists and soars up the face of the eyrie, the wind in her wake tearing at his hair and clothes. 

Suddenly his heart leaps to his throat, and he cannot breathe. There is a stab of righteous fury, a high keen of challenge in his breast—and with a burst of purplish-blue, Suryth springs from the eyrie without a sound, wings extended as he half-flies, half-bounds up the cliff-face in Fajr’s wake. Lorenz cries out, startled, ashamed, _humiliated_ —

 _ <<Ours>> _ comes the faint, thrilling cry of Suryth in his head, soft with distance but unmistakable. _ <<They are ours.>> _

“Suryth, don’t,” he whispers, half-covering his mouth. Already Freith and Virenth have overtaken him, and when he surges into the air his movements are clumsy and inefficient. Somehow, he does not fall, but his flight is nowhere near smooth enough to keep up with them.

“Oh goddess.” Hilda reaches out and clutches his arm so hard she’s surely leaving bruises. “Lorenz, he’s doing it! I told you!”

Lorenz shakes his head, cold dread pooling in his stomach. “No, no, no, no… He can’t fly without me, what is he _doing_?”

As if to prove his point, Fajr explodes over the top of the cliff and plummets groundward, leaving her pursuers far behind. Suryth leaps from the rock face as if to try and grapple her mid-air, but she evades him—barely—and he is buffeted as the others sweep past him, thrown against the cliff to claw and scrape for purchase. Lorenz can _see_ the lead lines bolted in place, slapping against his hide, but without his foot in the stirrup they’re useless. 

There is another hand on his arm, suddenly—Claude’s hand. Lorenz meets his wild eyes, breathless, feeling the scald and tingle of Claude’s grip around his bicep. “Then _fly her_ , dragonrider.”

Lorenz’s stomach drops. “What?”

Claude is grinning, and there’s something of a dragon’s keen ferocity in the white of his teeth. “You heard me.”

“Yes!” Hilda exclaims. “Come on, quickly, there’s still time!”

“I can’t!” Lorenz says even as she drags him toward the eyrie, half-craned to look back over his shoulder to Claude. “It’s not—this isn’t how it’s done!”

Hilda scoffs. “Claude doesn’t give a flying fuck about how things are _done_ . And I guarantee you neither does Fajr. Fair is fair—Suryth can’t fly without you, so _you’re_ going to have to fly with _him._ ”

The next few minutes are a blur. He reaches out for Suryth, fumblingly, and is startled when it actually works. He’s half into his riding gear when Suryth claws his way over the ledge into their roost, wings half-extended for balance. Hilda helps him fix the saddle in place, and Lorenz barely has enough time to connect the stirrup and buckle himself in before Suryth is launching them both into space. 

Flying has never been anything like this. Suryth’s single-minded purpose consumes him like a flame held to tinder, and Lorenz disappears for a little while, man and dragon melded together into one powerful, furious creature. He sees through Suryth’s eyes, not his own: sees the faceted sky overhead, the swift darting colors of the other dragons, the rich spread of land beneath them like a carpet woven of strange, impossible colors. And Fajr in the distance like a beacon, blazing bright and growing ever nearer. 

They overtake Virenth above the lake. He snarls and snaps at them, caught up in the thrill of the chase, but they evade his jaws and the brown gives a bellowing cry as he peels away in defeat. Canth is next: smaller, sleeker, but he gives way before Suryth’s sheer speed and determination. 

Only Freith remains. They rocket skyward together, hot on his tail; he’s very nearly caught Fajr, but she remains elusive, just shy of his bronze bulk. Three sets of wings pulse faster, higher, sending them into the lower bank of clouds. Lorenz, who had forgone a helmet in his haste, shuts his eyes against the cold and breathless height and wonders, _can we make it?_

Suryth bugles in response, a resounding call that rings in the air like the sirens that wail to warn of impending Threadfall. Above them Freith is starting to drop, flagging under the weight of his own body. He roars and curves his path along the underside of a billowing cumulonimbus. His wingtips graze the cloud and send rivulets of cold, damp moisture in his wake, but Suryth is not deterred. Rather than avoid it, Suryth shoots through the cloud itself—Lorenz’s lungs seize in his chest at the cold and dark, almost as dark as _between_. Then they’re coming out the other side, high above the world, his hair drenched and Suryth’s hide glistening pearlescent lavender as though he’s been graced with a pelt of morning dew. Lorenz can hardly breathe; his eyes water and he gasps uselessly, thrown out of Suryth’s head at the shock of it. He looks up, squinting against the light as a golden shadow blocks the naked sun.

They have her. Suryth’s wings fling forward like two great sails extended to catch the wind. For a moment they nearly slip, but Lorenz jams his heel hard into the stirrup and Suryth’s hind legs tangle with Fajr’s, holding her fast. She lets out a mighty shriek that splits the air—Lorenz cringes and buckles forward, stomach dropping as the dragons cling together. Fajr’s wings are wider, but Suryth makes a valiant effort, stretching out his own along their undersides, and all the ache and longing and fear in Lorenz’s body coalesces into a single point of light and bursts, a thousand radiant plumes of ash dispersed along the upper atmosphere. 

_Got you._

The thrill of victory is brief. They are rapidly losing height, and for a moment Lorenz struggles to find the right angle for his tailfin. Nothing he does seems to have any effect, and his mind is too blurred and fuzzy from his connection with Suryth. But then their fall softens and ease into a glide, turning so that Fajr is the one upside down, and Lorenz realizes _she_ is doing the flying for both of them. 

The clouds part around their tangled forms and Lorenz shields his eyes against the sunlight, clinging to the saddle for dear life. In his head, Suryth cries out joyfully, victorious, keening like an arctic wind—against all odds, he has made Fajr _his_ , and she has accepted his suit. 

His own sense of victory quickly bleeds away. This is the part where Lorenz should be on the ground, with Claude. His _friend-lover-suitor-mate_ . This is the part where their minds and bodies blend with those of their dragons, and they make a union of their own, forged from struggle and shared triumph. But Lorenz is not on the ground, Lorenz is _here_ , hanging off a saddle, drenched to the bone and struggling to breathe, fingers digging so deeply into the polished leather that his joints feel liable to snap. Need surges through him, a reflection of Suryth’s conquest—through him, he catches snippets of Fajr’s glory, and beyond that, slivers of Claude’s own mind, lonely and desperate. The sting of it pierces his chest as surely as any blade, but he is trapped. High above the ground, bound to his dragon, unable to do anything but burn from the inside.

The longer a queen’s mating flight, the better; everyone knows it, though science has yet to definitively prove anything. Lorenz is trying to brace himself for a long, cold flight, not even properly dressed against the elements, when he feels the sun’s warmth touch him and the shadow of the eyrie’s face pass over his hunched form. Despair wars with relief in his mind. So soon? They’ve barely been in the sky five minutes. But when Fajr touches down at the mouth of her roost, carrying Suryth with her, Lorenz eagerly fumbles and yanks at the straps around his thighs until he can stumble, rubber-kneed, to the ground. 

Great leathery wings beat and gust, stirring up sand. When Lorenz can see again, the mouth of the cavern is empty, Fajr and Suryth hardly more than a dark speck against the sky.

“Lorenz.” 

He turns on his heel and nearly falls to his knees. Claude is there, barefoot in the sand, lips bitten raw and red like the high flush on his cheeks. The cave is dark after the glare of the sun in his unprotected eyes, but to Lorenz he is a glowing vision. Already he’s shed his outer tunic and belt, shirt half-open to the navel, brown throat bare and vulnerable. 

“I knew you would do it,” he says. His eyes are alight with verdant fire; they pin Lorenz in place as he approaches, each footstep nearly soundless as though he’s walking on a cloud. His hands come up to Lorenz’s face, cradling him, and Lorenz feels his spine buckle, coaxing them together at last. 

His lips are warm and taste of cinnamon. He must have been enjoying a cup of spiced klah before the last threads of Fajr’s patience snapped. Lorenz feels dry and wind-chapped by comparison, but Claude devours him eagerly anyway, tongue prying between his teeth and hands clawing ineffectually at the fastenings of his tunic. His touch is impossibly warm after his hectic flight and Lorenz melts into it, moaning into his mouth as Claude slides broad, work-worn palms into his shirt. 

“You’re freezing,” Claude murmurs. He licks the frantic pulse that flutters beneath his jaw and bites down after, tender, testing the give of his flesh. “Come here.”

“You are… shockingly coherent,” Lorenz stammers, letting Claude drag him to the bed. It’s a bit mussed already, sheets tossed and blankets shoved to the foot of the mattress. Had he been here already today, writhing in the bedding, twisting to and fro as he tried to take the edge off his need? “I—what do you need? What can I do?”

“You can fuck me, for starters,” Claude says bluntly, and laughs when Lorenz yelps in surprise, toppling like a felled tree before the gentle, insistent force of his hand. Lorenz scrambles back on his elbows, watching through wide eyes as Claude pulls his shirt over his head and throws it to the ground. “I’m not in the mood to wait. I hope that’s all right.” His voice is a velveteen purr, raising the hairs on the back of Lorenz’s neck as Claude crawls over him on all fours. “You made me wait long enough already, don’t you think?”

“I’m sorry,” Lorenz begins, but the words are smeared over with a clumsy kiss. He answers it tongue for tongue, lifting a hand to hook around the nape of Claude’s neck, and is rewarded with a moan and the shifting pressure of Claude’s weight in his lap at last. 

“Don’t apologize. You were—magnificent. Both of you.” Claude’s eyes gleam in the dark, almost seeming to shed a light of their own as he helps peel Lorenz out of his gear. “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.”

“I know it’s not—not the usual way of things,” Lorenz chokes, undressed at last, his erection laying flushed and achingly hard against his thigh. Claude pauses over him, his fingers halfway through unlacing the front of his trousers. Waiting. Lorenz blinks past the warm haze of sex clouding his mind and finds the other end of the thought. “But I would do it again. I _will_ do it again, if necessary. Whatever it takes to win your heart.”

The naked hunger in Claude’s face softens. He leans down, curls tumbling over his forehead like an upset crown, and bestows a gentle kiss upon his lips. “You already have.” 

Somewhere out in the sky, above the clouds, Suryth and Fajr fly entwined—but for the first time all afternoon, Lorenz feels entirely in his own head. Wordless, too full of love and gratitude to speak, he pulls Claude back into a kiss, the kind of kiss that melts into another, and another, and another. His heart kicks like a hatchling in his chest as Claude shimmies out of the rest of his clothes and sprawls naked across the bed. He is beautiful: bare, sunkissed brown, solid and muscular and covered in dark curling hair that Lorenz eagerly runs his fingers through. His thighs part readily for him, soft and downy-haired. Lorenz drags his fingers up between them and finds him wet at his apex, and hot as dragonfire. 

“Fuck,” Claude sighs, back arched, heels digging into Lorenz’s thighs as if to guide him forward. “That’s the way, darling…” 

Sinking into him is like sinking into a warm bath. All the aching tension of the last hour dissipates like smoke on the breeze, and Lorenz buries himself to the hilt in one smooth slide. Beneath him, Claude stiffens and cries out—but his hands on Lorenz’s hips prevent him from moving away. So he moves closer instead, scooping a hand beneath one sturdy thigh, the opposite elbow dug deep into the mattress for purchase as he fucks him slow and deep. 

“I love you,” Lorenz breathes, a choked admission buried at the sweaty crook of Claude’s neck. His hand pets the coarse, fluffy curls over his mons and finds his erection there, hard and eager beneath his slippery fingers. “I’m not—I’m not just saying that, I swear to you—”

“Shhh… I know.” Claude peers at him through lashes clumped with unshed tears, stark black points that make his green eyes shimmer. “I know. We felt it… _ah_ … before…”

His words dry up in his throat, giving way to soft, rhythmic cries, but Lorenz knows what he means. He’d felt it, too. When Suryth caught her, violet wings silhouetted against gold, the connection had bloomed so brightly in his mind that for an instant it was as if Claude were beside him, riding pillion, arms around his waist and breath in his ear. A fleeting fantasy conjured by the union of their dragons, but no less real for it. 

_Nothing will change between us_ , Claude had said. Lorenz wants to laugh even as he rubs a shuddering orgasm out of his lover with an eager, unstinting hand. This changes _everything_. And he wouldn’t take it back for all the Weyrs in Fódlan. 

“Your turn,” Claude croaks afterward, voice raw. The strange, consuming energy rattling beneath his skin has abated somewhat, leaving him ragged and soft-edged as he pushes Lorenz over onto his back. 

“Are you sure?” Lorenz rasps. “You’re—you…”

He has no words. Claude bows over him, skin luminous with sweat, and bites shallowly into the tender hollow of his throat, stealing his voice. The tight, hot clasp of his body sinks down around his cock and Lorenz cries out, a shrill sound that echoes off the ceiling high above. Claude grins, heavy-eyed, and begins to move. 

Whatever tattered remnants of self-control Lorenz still has are quickly torn asunder. Claude moves slower now, but with purpose, languid satisfaction infusing every movement. The raging heat in him has been banked to a gentle glow, and it’s _maddening_ —everything in Lorenz aches to claim him, to press against his body, to mark him as his own. But he is paralyzed, pinned at the behest of his beloved; above him, Claude is regal, nearly angelic, limned in the dying light of sunset. When he throws his head back, throat bared, his curls become a halo, filtering sunlight through his lashes and kissing his parted lips with gold. 

Lorenz shuts his eyes against it, fists coiled in the sheets, and finds his peak in perfect silence. It shudders through him like a wave of coursing thunder, and when he comes back to himself, he feels satiated, scrubbed raw from the inside out. In his head, Suryth is finally quiet. 

With a low groan, Claude curls forward and sprawls against him. Lorenz lets out a quiet _oomph_ but accepts his weight without complaint. He’s still inside him, but softening, feeling the slow thud of Claude’s heartbeat against his ribs, the sticky drip of spend against his thigh. Lorenz nestles a kiss to the top of his head and just breathes. 

“This is… not what I was expecting to do with my day,” Claude mumbles at long last, voice thick with sleepy good humor. Lorenz had been on the verge of sleep himself, lulled by Claude’s breath on his neck and the comfortable weight of him on his chest, but at these words his eyes fly open and he half sits up, tipping Claude with a grumble onto the mattress beside him. 

“Threadfall—the Weyr, we need to prepare—”

“Shh. It’s fine.” Claude swats at him, coaxing him back down. “We’ve done this six times already. Everyone knows what to do. We can rest a little longer.”

Still disgruntled, even as Claude cuddles up to him, Lorenz reaches out for Suryth. He’s not far, though his mind is dulled with sleep, and prickles with irritation at being interrupted. “But the Wings… we always have a war meeting at this time.”

“Hilda can take care of it.” Claude rubs an open hand across his chest and smiles against his shoulder, lips a subtle curve on his bare skin. “Everyone knows what we’re up to, anyway. I guarantee they won’t want to interrupt.”

“ _Claude_!”

“What? It’s hardly a secret.” Finally succumbing to Lorenz’s nervous energy, Claude props himself up on one elbow and blinks down at him, soft and fond. “I’m glad it was you, Lorenz. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else.”

Lorenz flushes but cannot look away. “As am I. Even if…”

“Even if what?”

“Well it… it feels a bit like cheating. Suryth would never have been able to fly her on his own.”

“I’m not so sure of that.” Claude isn’t smiling anymore, but his eyes are still keen and crinkled at their edges, shadowed beneath dark lashes. “Had his tail been whole, I think he would’ve flown her easily. _Easily_. Do you want to know why?”

Lorenz folds his hands primly over his ribs and says, “I’m sure I would like to know why you _think_ he would have been able to fly her, yes.”

“Ass,” Claude says without heat. “The reason, of course, is that you love me.”

Lorenz blinks, then blushes. In the heat of the moment it had been easy to say, but hearing it so matter-of-factly from Claude’s mouth is another matter. “Well—yes, that is true, but I don’t see what that has to do with Suryth.”

Claude smiles, shaking his head. “You Fódlaners are so strange.” He leans over him and Lorenz braces for a kiss, but instead receives the gentlest brush of fingertips across his brow as Claude tidies a wayward lock of hair into place. “Dragons are, in a way, extensions of ourselves. They are their own creatures, but they bond so closely with us, sometimes the lines are… blurred.” He smirks and drops a kiss to the center of Lorenz’s chest. “As evidenced by what just transpired.”

“If you think I was… _coerced_ in some way—”

“Tsk! That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m _saying_ ,” and his mouth drags a damp, bristly path down his sternum, along his ribs, ignoring the way Lorenz flinches ticklishly, “instinct can only take them so far. Our emotions, our thoughts, our prejudices: they all influence our dragons, more than we really realize, I think. You—” _kiss_ “—love me, and Suryth felt that and reflected it, and it gave him an immense advantage over the others. You’ve seen a mating flight before, yes?”

Lorenz shakes his head dumbly. Settled between his legs now, Claude folds his arms over Lorenz’s stomach and rests his chin upon them, enviably at ease. “It can get pretty ugly on the ground. Bronzer riders will fight each other, sometimes, as their dragons fly.”

“Poor self-control,” Lorenz sniffs. 

“Maybe. My point is, Hilda _helped you_ get to Suryth, and Freith was one of the forerunners for a while there. He was strong, and fast, and instinct was driving him; but neither he nor Hilda really wanted the honor, in the end.”

“The _honor_.”

“Well, what would you call it?”

Lorenz swallows, and reaches for him. His jaw is soft with bristle under his fingers, and the curve of his smile fits perfectly into his palm when Claude turns his head into it like a cat; or a particularly indolent dragon. “All right,” he whispers, “you’ve made your point… Weyrleader.”

“Oh, goddess, not this again.” 

“It’s not as if you’re the _Weyrwoman_ , Claude, don’t be ridiculous. Your title _must_ change, and therefore…” Lorenz trails off at the warning nibble of blunt teeth against his hipbone. “Claude.”

“Lorenz.” Claude looks up at him through dark lashes, smirking. “Think we have time for another round?”

Lorenz is still soft against his thigh, but at Claude’s warm, suggestive exhale he feels a stirring deep within his groin. Still, he cannot help but eye the sky. Sun has barely set—they have only an hour or so yet before they must be ready to fly. 

“As much as I would like…”

“Ugh. You’re probably right.” Nevertheless incorrigible, Claude presses a swift kiss to the top of his thigh before pushing up onto his knees and stretching his arms over his head. “Let’s not discuss titles just yet, all right? Let’s get through this Pass, first, and then we can let the Weyr decide.”

“An acceptable compromise.” 

Lorenz sits up and gives in to the urge to spread his hands over Claude’s ribs, tracing the warm breadth of him, solid and implacable. Every flex of his diaphragm is like the heave of a dragon’s wings beneath him. Lorenz breathes in time and tilts his head up even as Claude tips down, kissing his upturned lips with a smile. 

Perhaps they have enough time after all. 

🐉

Lorenz tries very hard not to blush when he arrives in the courtyard to a raucous explosion of whooping and hollering from his dragonriders. He fails. At least it’s dark enough that his fiery complexion is difficult to make out as he strides between them like he’s traversing a gauntlet, taking slaps on the back and cheerful ribbing with as much dignity as he can muster. 

Thankfully Suryth is waiting for him on the other side. He’s practically glowing with pride, eyes a deep, plummy rose color, neck arching as Lorenz grabs the saddlehorn and hauls himself up to face the assembled Wings. 

“All right, that’s enough,” he grumbles, and thankfully they quiet with only minimal chortling. Odd indeed, having to confront his subordinates after spending an hour and a half doing _exactly_ what everyone suspects he’s been doing. He catches sight of Claude on the other side of the courtyard, suited up and skulking in the back, and tries not to shiver at the thrill of pride and affection that roll through him and Suryth both. “You’ve all done magnificently well—I have no other guidance to offer. We fly tonight for the last time this Pass.”

A cheer kicks up immediately and Lorenz allows himself a smile, chest tight. Against all odds, they’ve pulled off an incredible success. No casualties thus far, only minor injuries. No one lost to scoring, no one lost _between_. As he gazes down on the faces of his riders, he feels the sting of tears at the back of his throat and does not swallow them away.

“I am proud of you all,” he says. His voice is softer now, but they quiet instantly, attuned to his every word in a way that sends shivers down his spine. “I could not ask for a braver, more dedicated Weyr. This year was a struggle, but we survived it, and because of your efforts, Leicester will live on another cycle to grow and thrive and prosper.” His eyes fall on some of the younger members of the Weyr, gathered close to hear his address: Lysithea, eyes shining with eagerness and determination; Cyril, more stern, but the glimmer of excitement in his eyes. “And in a few short months, goddess willing, we’ll have a new clutch of eggs for the next generation of dragonriders.”

The cheer that goes up this time is slightly more bawdy, but Lorenz decides he will permit it this once. He catches Claude’s eye over the heads of the crowd and receives a wink in return. 

“Leicester Weyr!” he calls, voice echoing against the keep wall. “Mount up!”

It’s more of a symbolic command than literal: the main courtyard isn’t nearly big enough for every dragon in Leicester. But as the riders scatter to the eyrie for their mounts, Lorenz still feels the warmth of victory swell in his chest. He finishes strapping himself in and as soon as the yard is clear, signals Suryth to spread his wings and launch them skyward. 

🐉🐉🐉

Threadfall, Claude has read, operates not unlike the tide. It comes in slow at first, then gaining speed until it’s at its height, lapping the feet of mountains and crushing stone into sand. Then it retreats again, bit by bit, until the last traces of it are mere glints of silver in the dark, the blood moon’s last ditch attempt to sprinkle the earth below in carnage. 

It can make a rider lazy. He’s heard it multiple times from experienced dragonriders, those who have flown enough passes to watch their friends fight and fall and die beneath Thread’s relentless hunger. But the truth is, sparser Threadfall is more difficult to fight. The eyes grow tired more quickly, straining in the dark to see the next cluster; more prone to missing it when it does fall. The ground crews, then, must pick up the slack, and Claude intends to make sure they do just that. 

He likes piloting the ground crews. In just six days he’s learned more about flying and commanding and fighting thread than he has in all his time at Almyra Weyr. It requires more than simple oversight. As the only winged member, it’s his and Fajr’s job to ensure everyone’s cannisters are in working order, delivering replacements when needed, ferrying second and third shifts out into the fields, flying the injured back to the medical stations sprinkled across the Weyr like little chess pieces upon a massive board. And on top of all that, he must keep an eye out for Thread himself, and make sure to communicate with the main Wings to ensure that anything that slips through is properly incinerated. 

By now he’s got a good handle on it, but he refuses to relax. As he feared, more Thread has made it through the Wings tonight than any of the other nights combined. Fajr sends word to Suryth, and the response is encouraging; but such is the nature of the end of Threadfall. Riders get cocky, dragons get sloppy, and the ground crews have to pick up the slack. 

He’s just dropped off another refill on fire cannisters to the checkpoint in Goneril Hold when a sharp frisson of utter cold seizes his chest. He cries out, and beneath him Fajr shudders, wings faltering even as she takes them skyward. At first he’s not sure what he just felt, but then he reaches out, slipping seamlessly through Fajr’s brilliant mind, and hits a blank wall where Suryth and Lorenz should be. 

_ <<Between>> _ Fajr says, and Claude wants to scream. This… this _connection_ between him and Lorenz is new, and faint, but even he can feel the gaping emptiness in his chest where that little ball of warmth should be. Blipping in and out of _between_ is par for the course during Threadfall, but this is something else entirely. 

_ <<No. They’re fine.>> _ He counts the seconds in time with his breath: three, four, five, six... _ <<They’re returning to Leicester—perhaps one of them is hurt.>> _ Seven seconds. Eight. Far too long to be _between_. The ache grows, going cold, ice in his veins. He can’t breathe—

An explosion of relief sweeps over them both as Suryth reappears in their mind’s eye: a glowing silver filament against an endless black. Claude heaves for breath, stomach churning, and eases back in the saddle. 

_ <<Where is Lorenz?>> _ Fajr asks. _ <<I do not feel him.>> _

_ <<Asleep>> _ comes the reply, faint as a whisper, ragged with distance and something else. Suryth’s voice is just a shadow to Claude, eavesdropping on their conversation, but the richness of it surprises him: mid-range, what a human might call baritone, thrumming with fear and grief that he can taste like vinegar on the back of his tongue.

“Asleep,” he echoes. It sounds wrong in his own language. Not asleep. Unconscious. 

_ <<Injured>> _Fajr parses, and already her wings beat mightily against the sky, turning aside from their intended path north. Claude twists in his saddle, peering sightlessly through the night toward Leicester Weyr. Apart from the occasional flare of golden-orange in the night, he can’t make out the nearest Wing. It’s Leonie’s, he thinks, and a moment later Fajr reaches out to Virenth with the alarm. 

The vague murmur of draconic conversation ripples in the back of his mind, but he tries not to listen too closely. Dragonspeak can quickly grow incomprehensible when they converse with each other, human conventions dropped and circumvented for odd shortcuts that only another dragon could unravel. And unravel it Fajr does, as swiftly as she can, relaying the salient information as he tries not to succumb to terror. 

_ <<No one saw them go _ between _. Leonie is sending two riders back to look for him. >> _

_ <<Where is the rest of his damned Wing?>> _

_ <<Continuing north. They have raised the alarm, but they cannot go back to search. The central region is the most attacked.>> _

Claude curses under his breath and tries to reach out for Lorenz himself, riding the waves of his mental connection with Fajr; but that glow is gone, or perhaps never was, only a figment of his romantic imagination. 

A bloom of light tears him from his frantic thoughts, and when he looks up its to see Canth breathing a gout of furious flame just a few dragonlengths above their heads. Even forbidden from going _between_ , Fajr made good time. They’ve reached the tail end of the central wing. 

“Shamir!” he calls, and gets a wave in response. Their dragons are too large to fly close, but he cups his hands around his mouth and tries anyway. “Have you seen Lorenz?”

“He fell back!” she shouts back, her voice worn down to a thread by the rush of beating wings. “A final sweep of the rear guard!”

 _ <<The ground crews…>> _ Fajr warns as they peel away. _ <<They still need us.>> _

Claude covers his face with his hands. _ <<They could be hurt. Fajr…>> _

She glides lower, head tilting this way and that, nostrils flaring for the slightest tang of Thread, but she does not turn north. _ <<I cannot decide this for you, dearest>> _she says, so gently, and Claude sobs aloud in frustration. 

_ <<Return to Goneril>> _ he says, though it costs him dearly. _ <<We’ll check in, and then come back to look.>> _

_ <<Priath and Firileth will tell us if they find anything.>> _ She means it as assurance, but he can’t help the scoff that rises to his lips. 

_ <<Leonie should have kept them with her. They are more needed in the sky.>> _

Fajr does not reply with words. Instead she sends a steady pulse of comfort through their bond, tinged with the fear she carries in her own breast. Though she hides it well, she aches for them, too— _how cruel it would be, to lose them both after today’s flight… after finally holding him in my arms…_

Fajr cries out into the night, a reprimand and a reminder. They must focus. They must maintain command.

He arrives in Goneril as dawn is just beginning to touch the border mountains of Almyra. Holst is waiting for him at the checkpoint, waving a torch in the predawn glow to guide their flightpath. Despite being at least twice her size in both height and muscle, the family resemblance with Hilda is unmistakable, even in the dark; his vibrant pink hair sticks in sweaty curls to his soot-stained face, and his smile is big and boisterous despite the fragile angle of his arm in its sling. But his cheerful mood drops at the sight of Claude’s stricken face, and he thrusts his torch at a hovering subordinate in order to help him slide from the saddle. 

“Claude, you look terrible. What’s happened?”

“Lorenz is missing,” Claude says wearily. Unprepared for the reality of standing on his own two feet after hours on dragonback, he lists to one side, fumbling for Fajr’s steady foreleg to stay upright. “We’re going to look for him, but I wanted to check in first.”

“We’re all right,” Holst says, too cheerfully. The stain of smoke tattoos the lines of his drawn-up brows, and he stands too stiffly—he’s in pain. But he waves off Claude’s queries with a grunt and a sigh, “Had a bit of a scare for a minute there, but we eradicated it. Sprained my damn arm is all, no one was scored.”

“You don’t need any reinforcements, any more supplies…?”

“The worst of it has passed us by, thank the goddess. We’re expecting fresh medical supplies in an hour or so, but we can make do until then.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Sure as dragonfire.” Holst gives a sharp nod and an old-fashioned Fódlaner salute, fist to chest and bowing at the waist as far as his injured arm will allow. “Go and find our Weyrleader. He needs you more than we do.”

“Thank you.” Claude returns the bow as deeply as he can without falling over. Climbing back onto Fajr is an ordeal, but once he’s strapped in, nothing short of the goddess could drag him from the saddle. He favors Holst with a farewell salute, and together he and Fajr leap skyward, pointed south.

The sunrise begins in earnest as they fly, as fast as they can manage without losing focus. Claude peers through the pink-toned half-light with eyes that weep against the bitter wind, feeling numb to the chill and the claws of sleeplessness sunk deep into his bones. Nothing matters now except finding Lorenz. He will fly until he passes out, and his tacking will keep him in the saddle until he can wake and search again. 

They make good time. Soon they’ve returned to the place where he first felt Lorenz wink out of his head, and then beyond. Occasionally Fajr lifts her voice in query, seeking out Suryth—but he is tired and very, very faint, barely conscious. Following the thread of his voice is like crawling blind through a midnight forest with only the faintest sound of a crackling fire in the distance for a guide, constantly blurred by rustling leaves and night noises. 

Claude rubs his eyes again and again, wiping away tears as the land grows brighter all around them. The ground is grey at first, then silver, then a warmer green-gold color as the forests of central Leicester give way to the moors, smooth and time-worn, sprinkled with spires of rock and outcroppings of thistle. Now and then the earth scoops in upon itself, forming hollow dells and little valleys that hide trickling streams and canyons of stone. Each of them a potential resting-place, each of them empty. 

Then, through the cool shreds of mist that cover the earth like a shroud, he sees it: a glimmer of violet blue. Fajr changes course immediately, angling their descent more sharply, and Claude’s heart rises into his throat as the ground rushes up to meet them. 

The landing is rough. Fajr’s talons dig deeply into the long grass, but gain little traction, and her wings beat the air frantically to slow their momentum. Claude tears at his saddle straps anyway, stumbling to the ground as soon as Fajr is steady enough. 

Suryth lies before them, curled and crumpled on the ground like a lady’s abandoned scarf. Claude can see at a glance that he’s scored, though not as badly as he feared: angry red lines carve along his spine and his false leather tailfin is torn to shreds, half hanging off him and trailed in the dirt, although it’s unclear whether the damage is from Thread or from the landing. He lifts his great head slightly as Claude approaches, eyes whirling slow and dazed. 

“Please,” Claude whispers, hands extended in supplication. “Is he all right? Is he alive?”

Suryth turns slightly, wing dragging along the ground to reveal the saddle. Claude covers his mouth with one hand. Thread has scored him here, too, eating through the straps to that the saddle is practically falling off him. More importantly: it’s empty. 

A scream builds in Claude’s chest, but before he can release it, Suryth’s wing lifts the rest of the way and Claude sees a pale hand extended in the dirt, half-curled. Glove missing. Palm caked in blood. He runs forward, heedless of startling Suryth, and pushes the heavy curled wing aside. 

Lorenz lies still and pale as chalk on the ground, helmet missing, armor half-eaten away by Thread. His hair spreads out dark black against the earth, soaked in the sluggish ooze of blood from the side of his head where Thread has scored angry lines down the side of his face and neck. There is no Thread in him now, or on the ground—Claude looks, heart twisted painfully beneath his ribs, but Suryth huffs warm breath at him and he understands in an instant why they were _between_ for so long. 

“How did you do that?” he breathes, even as shaky hands feel for and find a pulse. Dull and thin, but steady. He bows his head and presses his cheek to Lorenz’s shredded chestplate. The chainmail beneath held firm, thank the goddess. “How did you stay _between_ long enough for the Thread to die?”

He doesn’t expect an answer, and nearly jumps out of his skin to hear Suryth’s voice in his head, even deeper and richer without the buffer of Fajr’s consciousness between them. _ <<We held on as long as we could. We were caught unawares, and my tail was destroyed. We could not fly—we could barely go _ between _at all. >> _

“But you did. You saved him.” Claude shuts his eyes and scrubs a few traitorous tears away before gingerly moving Lorenz’s head. He remains unconscious—probably for the best. The damage is bad. Worse than anything Claude has seen, and his stomach twists in rebellion, but he forces the nausea down as he inspects the damage. Lorenz’s entire left side seems to have been scored, though the long seconds _between_ slowed the bleeding to a crawl and expedited the clotting. Claude curses himself for never learning any proper healing magic, and looks to Suryth. “You can’t fly, you said. I… Suryth, we’ll come back for you, but Lorenz—he needs medical attention, urgently.”

Suryth growls deep in his chest, eyes whirling slightly faster. _ <<I do not wish to be parted from him.>> _

“I know. But it’s faster if we take him with us, rather than going for a healer and returning.” Though it’s taboo, Claude gathers his courage and reaches out, placing a hand on Suryth’s noble brow. He’s a touch cooler than Fajr, though Claude isn’t sure if that’s due to the extended time _between_ or just the natural inclination of blues. “Please. We’ll come back. We will bring you home.”

There is a long, agonizing moment where Claude fears his refusal. And he would honor it, though it would endanger Lorenz’s life—but Suryth dips his head and presses the slightest, softest exhale to Claude’s ribs, a dragon’s kiss that warms him even through his armor. 

_ <<Take him. He must live. He… is everything.>> _

“I know,” Claude whispers, and drops his hand. “He’s everything to me, too.”

With painstaking motions, wincing at every small, unconscious whimper Lorenz releases, Claude gathers him into his arms and carries him to Fajr. She lays flat upon the ground, bringing the saddle as close within range as she can, and even then it’s difficult getting Lorenz over it; Claude has to concede to laying him facedown over her shoulders before mounting up himself, sparing half his tacking to secure Lorenz’s body in place. Still he hasn’t stirred awake, or made any sort of conscious sound, but his breathing grows more labored and his face grows paler, if possible, as Fajr prepares to take flight. 

_ <<Please.>> _Suryth has lifted his head to watch them, wings tucked protectively against his back. He huffs and spits white smoke, eyes spinning—he is frantic, bordering aggressive, but his injuries and his intuition keep him grounded as Fajr beats her wings once. Twice.

They are airborne. Claude takes a deep breath and looks north.

 _ <<We must go _ between _ >> _ Fajr says firmly. _ <<Flying so far is not possible for him.>> _

It might spell death for the beginnings of new life within her, but she is right. They have no other choice. 

_ <<It is all right>> _ she adds as Claude hesitates, the picture of Leicester Weyr a murky facsimile in his mind. _ <<I will rise again, when Lorenz-Suryth is healed.>> _

_ <<You really love him, don’t you>> _ Claude says. Despite his words to Lorenz earlier, the knowledge surprises him, like stumbling upon a bird’s nest on the ground. Fragile, endangered, but wholly delicate and perfect. He doesn’t clarify which _him_ he means. It doesn’t matter. To Fajr, they are one. 

_ <<You love him>> _ she retorts, wings extended toward the sunrise. _ <<Of course I do.>> _

Together Leicester solidifies in their minds, becomes a single fixed point that he can feel in his bones as clear as truest north. He shuts his eyes, and Fajr flies _between._

🐉🐉🐉

Lorenz wakes slowly, fuzzily, unsure of where he is. The world arrives to him in bits and pieces. First the weight upon his chest, a thick blanket; then the distant ache of pain in his cheek, his arm, his left leg. That feeling is horribly familiar—or _would_ be horrible, if he could look at it directly, accept its presence in his body. But his brain is murky and uncoordinated, and that is familiar, too. A year ago he’d become well acquainted with the taste and feel of fellis in his system, and he feels a distant pang of dread at the implications of such a heavy dose. 

“Lorenz?”

The voice is as soft and muzzy as the rest of him, but there’s a pang of sweet remembering that fills his chest with relief, as light as a balloon. It takes all his strength, but he turns his head on the pillow and blinks through blurry eyes at the face swimming into focus above him. “Cl…”

“Shh, don’t try to talk. You were badly hurt, my darling.” The bed dips beneath him and he feels warmth against his right cheek. He blinks rapidly, trying to clear his vision, and realizes with a muffled twist of consternation that he can’t see out of his left eye.

“Claude,” he tries again, despite Claude’s warning. His tongue is heavy in his mouth, dry as dust and sour-tasting from the fellis juice. “I can’t… my eye…”

“It’s just a precaution,” Claude soothes. “It’s not hurt. But you were scored pretty badly, and the healers didn’t want to risk infection.”

“How… badly?” He tries to force off the haze of fellis juice, but it’s difficult. It permeates every sense, every thought, slowing him to a crawl. He’s laying in bed but it feels like he’s flowing downstream, at the mercy of a current that he cannot see or feel. “Where—Suryth?”

“He’s fine. You’re in the infirmary for now, so the healers can keep an eye on you, but in a day or two you can go back to your roost with him.” With every blink, Claude’s face comes into sharper focus, and finally Lorenz can see the haggard exhaustion dragging at his expression, can smell the sharpness of smoke and sulfur on his clothes. “You’ll be all right,” he says, and forces up a smile that Lorenz isn’t sure he believes. “It’ll take a little time, that’s all.”

He explains, then, in halting, painstaking detail, what happened. Lorenz and Suryth had circled back around to catch any straggling Thread, and were caught unawares. Suryth was scored first, ruining his tailfin, and then Lorenz when they failed to course-correct in time to avoid a falling cluster. It grazed his entire left side, leaving long pink scars on his cheek, his arm, his thigh. Lorenz passed out from the pain, and Suryth blinked _between_ for as long as he could to kill any lingering Thread. Then they fell. Despite his best efforts, the landing was rough, and Lorenz’s left leg had snapped under Suryth’s weight. 

“You will walk again,” Claude assures him before Lorenz can begin to panic in earnest. “It’ll take a little time and therapy, but you’ll be just as mobile as you were before. Adrestia sent their best healer to ensure it.”

“Lin...hardt?”

“That’s the one. Bit of an odd duck, but goddess, he sure knows what he’s doing.” Claude glances up then, looking across the bed. Although it pains him, Lorenz turns his neck to follow his line of sight and smiles to see the familiar shape of a snoozing Linhardt laid out on the next cot over. “He said to wake him when you stirred,” Claude adds, squeezing Lorenz’s hand. “I guess I should do that, huh.”

“He will be… quite cross with you,” Lorenz manages to eke out. 

“He’ll survive.”

True to expectations, Linhardt grumbles a bit as Claude shakes him awake, but he makes a thorough examination without any complaints, eyes sharp and calculating behind the thin wire-rimmed spectacles he keeps on a chain around his neck. Halfway through Claude slips out to “attend to something,” and Lorenz lets himself slip into a quiet melancholy, helped along by the fellis. The plant can have different effect depending on the person, its preparation, its dosage, and so on, but Lorenz has always found it to make him deeply, inconsolably sad, and today is no exception. 

“Weyrleader,” Linhardt says gently, as he’s replacing the bandages on his arm, “am I hurting you?”

“No,” Lorenz whispers. He blinks, and hot tears fall unexpectedly down his temples and sink into the pillow. “I’m all right. The fellis…”

“I see. Would you like me to ease back on the amount?”

“Please.”

“All right. You’re looking much better today.” He pulls the blankets up beneath his arms and smooths them flat with brisk motions. “I’ll send down to the kitchens for some broth. You need to keep up your strength.”

When he leaves, the infirmary is far too quiet. Lorenz closes his eyes and searches for Suryth, desperate to escape the stinging loneliness, and sighs with relief at the surge of delight and welcome he receives in return. A few minutes later the connection grows even stronger, and he bites back bittersweet laughter at the sound of yells and exclamations as something vaguely dragon-sized positions itself decisively on the battlements outside the infirmary. 

_ <<You are awake>> _ Suryth booms, loud enough that Lorenz flinches on the pillows. _ <<You are slow and ill. Tell the healer that he must not ply you with so much fellis.>> _

_ <<I told him>> _ Lorenz says reassuringly. He cranes his head, but can’t quite see out the window to where Suryth is perched. _ <<Are you making a nuisance of yourself?>> _

_ <<Of course not. We are Weyrleader. We are not a nuisance.>> _

Lorenz hums skeptically, but is silently relieved for Suryth’s presence. If only the infirmary were big enough to admit a dragon!

They do not speak much more, but their mental connection burgeons and grows over the next hour or so as they linger together, sharing the quiet. Lorenz drifts off a few times, and whenever he wakes Suryth is there, a soft violet warmth in the back of his head. 

Slowly, the fellis bleeds from his system. The ache of his injuries intensifies, but it’s worth it for the sharpness of mind he receives in exchange. He is feeling much more like himself by the time the door opens and Claude returns, still weary in the slumped angle of his shoulders, but bearing a tray of broth and new bread and wearing a soft smile that brightens to see Lorenz sitting up and alert.

“There you are.” He shuts the door behind him with his foot and walks carefully to the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Much more awake.” Lorenz tries to lift his left hand to his face to rub the grit of sleep away, and winces at the flare of pain that bristles through him like fire. 

“Still in pain?” 

“A bit. I’ll survive.”

“That you will. I’ll make certain of it.” Claude helps him sit up a little more and lays the tray across his lap before taking a chair and drawing it up to his bedside. “If you need help eating…”

Lorenz grimaces. “My right hand is still perfectly serviceable, thank you.”

“All right, all right. Just checking.” Claude leans back in his seat, just watching him, a small smile still playing in the corners of his mouth. Lorenz arches an eyebrow. “Sorry,” he laughs. “Just… it’s good to see you awake and glaring at me.”

“How long was I out?”

“Two days. Part of that was medical sedation… Linhardt didn’t want you doing yourself an injury while the bone set.” Claude folds his arms over his chest and sighs. “If you don’t mind, we should talk business, while you’re up and awake.”

Lorenz feels a chill settle behind his breastbone, but he nods and turns his eyes toward his soup. “Of course.”

“Threadfall is over. There were no casualties… barely.” The lilt in Claude’s voice invites Lorenz to laugh with him about the close call, but he cannot bring himself even to smile. He knows what’s coming. To hear it spoken out loud is going to hurt. “Hilda has gone to Goneril to help with cleanup, I guess there was a bit of Threadfall that made it through, but it’s been isolated. Your injury was the worst—anyone else who was hurt is already back on their feet.”

Goddess, he’s really dragging it out. Lorenz takes a deliberate spoonful of soup and tries to taste it, but fellis has numbed his tastebuds and it’s all he can do to swallow without a grimace. 

“And then there’s the Weyr,” Claude says, and Lorenz goes still. “Hilda’s taken over most of the day to day stuff with you out of commission, since she’s had more hands on experience with it. She hates it, though, so feel free to heal back up as quickly as you can.”

Lorenz sets his spoon back on the tray with a clatter. “Claude…”

“Yes, my dear?”

And oh, goddess, that hurts more than anything else. Lorenz shuts his eyes. “It is cruel of you to keep pretending like this. We both know I am no longer fit to serve as Weyrleader.”

Claude is silent for a moment. “We both know _no such thing_. What are you talking about? You’re injured, Lorenz, not dead.”

“And how long before I am back on my feet? How long will the Weyr tread water before it sinks, without my full attention back at its helm?” To say it out loud feels like he’s pulling his own ribs apart with a blade, but say it he must. For the good of the Weyr. “It’s better if you and Hilda take leadership now. Permanently.”

For a minute or two there is no response. In fact it’s so deathly quiet and Lorenz wonders if Claude has somehow stood up and left the room without making a sound—but then there is a shift of boots on stone, and the mattress dips slightly as Claude shifts to sit beside him. “If you keep talking like this,” Claude says lowly, “I’m going to start to think you don’t want me.”

This startles him into finally meeting Claude’s eyes. “What?”

“You keep talking about passing on leadership to me and Hilda, as though Suryth didn’t fly Fajr. As though we didn’t pledge ourselves together only a few night ago.” Claude’s voice is like velvet over steel, eye cold and sharp as flint. “If you do not want me at your side, please tell me so plainly.”

“Of course I do,” Lorenz whispers, too afraid of the alternative to mince words. “Always.”

Claude takes a deep breath and nods. “It’s going to be difficult. Recovery. Walking, riding, flying again. Leading again. But to give up before you even begin… it’s very unlike you, Lorenz.”

“I don’t want to get in your way.” Lorenz swallows. “But if you want me here, at your side…”

“Always,” Claude echoes, and smiles. Exhaustion weighs him down, darkening the gold-flecked warmth of his eyes to inky emerald as he brings Lorenz’s knuckles to his lips for a dry kiss. “If it helps cement the idea in your mind, I spoke with a few of the senior riders, and they agree: you and I should lead the Weyr, together.”

“We should still… hold a proper vote,” Lorenz mumbles, flushing at the way Claude’s two-day stubble scrapes his palm. 

“I agree.” Another kiss, this time to his wrist. Claude’s eyes twinkle like morning dew on young grass, and Lorenz’s heart skips a beat. “Whatever we decide, as long as we do it together, I will be content.”

Lorenz huffs a raw little laugh, deep in the back of his throat where tears threaten to gather. “You make it sound as though you would run away with me, if I asked.”

“Of course I would. But something tells me that’s not what you have in mind.” Claude winks, but Lorenz no longer feels like laughing. His words were too sincere, aimed too perfectly at his fragile heart. _Of course I would_. No hesitation, as though such a ridiculous notion were even remotely possible. 

“You’re right,” Lorenz croaks. “I have devoted myself to the Weyr, and cannot bear to leave it unattended. At least not yet. But with you at my right hand, perhaps that burden will not feel quite so heavy.”

“Then at your right hand I shall remain.” Claude squeezes his hand. “I love you.”

Lorenz blinks away the warning prickle of impending tears. _Damn fellis juice._ “And I you.”

“I know.” Smirk softened by weariness, Claude leans in and kisses his brow, the bridge of his nose. His mouth, softly, though it’s chapped and salty from the broth. “Eat up and rest, now. The Weyr will stand on its own two feet without you for another few days.”

“Thanks to you.” Lorenz kisses him back before can draw away, fingers curled ineffectually around his spoon. His stomach can wait another few minutes. 

🐉🐉🐉

_Five months later_

Leicester Weyr is alight with celebration. Lorenz can feel it in his bones as he takes the steps two at a time down to the hatching ground, cane gripped in his hand like an afterthought. The anticipation has been building all day, passed between riders in smiles and nods, burning in the eyes of the young Weyrlings who have been brought in from all four corners of Leicester for the event. 

The Hatching is almost here. 

He turns the corner and nearly runs straight into Cyril, who’s already changed into his traditional hatching garb: plain white shirt, loose white drawstring trousers, sandals to protect against the vibrant heat of the hatching ground sand. He catches himself right before plowing into Lorenz and bows deeply, hands fluttering at his side. 

“Claude was looking for you,” he blurts, “it’s almost time.”

“I’m coming, as you can see. Go on and get back into place, Cyril—it wouldn’t do for you to be late.”

“Yes, sir!” Cyril bows again and beats a hasty retreat. Lorenz follows at a slightly slower pace, making use of his cane again—his frantic descent down the stairs was perhaps not the most advisable course of action. 

Despite his slower gait, he’s settled at the top of the hatching ground when Claude arrives, red-faced and out of breath. He’s changed as well, wearing white underneath with the gold and green of Leicester woven into his over-robe and sash. He drops into his seat and grabs Lorenz’s hand, leaning in for a kiss. 

“There you are. I couldn’t find you in our office and I was worried.”

“I was taking inventory when I felt it. Hush, now.” Lorenz squeezes his hand and shivers with anticipation. “It’s happening.”

Down below, the hatching ground sands are warm and white, cradling at their center the healthy clutch of seven eggs. Fajr curls around them, huge and glowing, eyes spinning with excitement. She spares a look and an irritable snort for the fourteen Weyrlings that shuffle into the ring, but her attention is swiftly directed elsewhere as one of the eggs shakes slightly in the sand. 

Lorenz remembers clearly his own Hatching Day. The day he impressed Suryth. He had been sixteen, a little old for a Weyrling but not outrageously so, plucked out of Gloucester Hold when he was scouted by a Faerghus dragonrider. With no mature queen in Leicester, scouts from Faerghus and Adrestia, and even Dagda and Brigid, came to the Alliance holds seeking promising youths to impress upon their own clutches and train them up to be dragonriders. Whether or not they remained in their adoptive Weyrs would depend upon the rider and the needs of the Weyr, and at the time Loren had truly believed he would stay in Faerghus, far from the controlling clutches of his father.

He had been so frightened. What if he wasn’t chosen? What if all the new dragonlings passed him by, drawn to other, better souls than his? What would his father do, if he were passed over? The hatching had seemed to drag on for ages like this, standing paralyzed in the sand as egg after egg cracked open, exposing shiny colors and wet, crumpled wings. The Hatching Ground at Faerghus Weyr had soon been filled with crying dragons and equally emotional Weyrlings. Impressing was an intense experience, he’d been told, and now he could see the evidence before his own eyes… but still he waited, trembling, dread pooling in his stomach. Only two eggs left now. Lorenz braced himself for disgrace. 

Then the second to last egg split open. He could see a glimmer of violet-blue, a struggling snout, an egg tooth gleaming in the sunlight as the hatchling struggled free. His heart surged into his throat, and he didn’t know why. And then he heard it.

 _ <<Lorenz… Lorenz…>> _ A tiny, plaintive cry, fumbling over the syllables of his own name. He saw deep purple eyes spinning frantically, and it was like the entire world fell away. He ran, no, stumbled across the sand, dropped to his knees. He knew the hatchling’s name as soon as he crawled into his arms. 

_ <<Suryth>> _ he said, testing the feel of it on his tongue. His chest swelled fit to burst and he could barely see for the tears in his eyes. _ <<Hello… hello. I’m so happy to meet you.>> _

“Feeling sentimental, are we?” Claude murmurs now, speaking out of the side of his mouth. Down in the hatching ground of Leicester Weyr, the first egg has begun to split: the largest egg of them all, a faint butter-yellow color that marks it as a queen. Against all odds—in spite of Threadfall, in spite of _between_ —Fajr has laid a queen egg. The promise of prosperity in Leicester spreads before him like a beautiful tapestry, and Lorenz blinks away tears as he clutches his partner’s hand. 

“Can you blame me?” he whispers back. “It’s like watching old memories play back before my very eyes.”

The crowd release a collective gasp. Another egg has begun to shake and splinter. Not surprising: queen eggs are tougher than any other color, and it’s likely that she’ll be fighting her way from her shell for many more minutes. On the sand, the circle of prospective Weyrlings hold their breaths as one. Some of them look ready to faint, but toward the center, Cyril and Lysithea—older than most of the others by a few years—stand with their backs straight and their hands clasped together, waiting. Watching. 

An egg splits open suddenly, spilling forth a bronze dragonlet. His wet wings unfold like crumpled tissue paper, and he lets out a tiny, guttural wail. Lorenz bites his tongue to keep from cheering as Cyril stumbles forward. 

“Bronze,” Claude murmurs approvingly. “Good. He will be an excellent Wingleader in a few years.”

Next is a green, then a brown, both of them impressing on Weyrlings scouted from Goneril Hold. Then a blue, his scales dark as sapphires. A Weyrling from Edmund Hold starts bawling happy tears and Lorenz dabs a few tears of his own from his cheeks with a handkerchief. 

Still the queen egg trembles. A tiny crack begins to form upon its surface, and Lorenz clutches Claude’s hand hard. The crack splits and widens. The audience murmurs and hums, but otherwise goes quiet as the largest egg breaks in half and a beautiful young queen spills out onto the sand, a lighter yellow than her mother but still resplendent. The fraying circle of Weyrlings fractures further as Lysithea lets out a small cry and steps forward.

“ _Yes_ ,” Claude crows, and then covers his mouth as Lorenz elbows him sharply in the side. 

“Oh, thank the goddess.” Lorenz leans into Claude’s warmth as Lysithea falls to her knees and gathers the young dragon into her arms. “She will make an excellent queenrider.”

His hands shake a little in the aftermath of that particular impressing, and he almost fails to pay attention as a smallish brown hatches at the edge of the pile. The last egg. But none of the remaining youths step forward—some of them exchange confused glances, but they are not the ones. Claude and Lorenz exchange a quick, nervous glance. Dragonlings who fail to impress are very rare, but it _can_ happen. 

“What should we do?” Lorenz whispers. 

“Wait. Just… give him a moment. Maybe he’s still figuring it out.”

They watch with bated breath as the hatchling crawls from the wreckage of his shell and across the sand. Crying, craning his neck. He’s small for a brown, almost runty, wings small and dragging behind him like a tattered kite. Lorenz’s chest aches. “We have to do something, Claude—”

He’s half-risen from his seat, to do what he’s not sure, when there’s a loud exclamation and Raphael vaults over the barrier to land in the Hatching Ground sand. Lorenz’s mouth drops open. 

“Well, well.” Claude leans forward with him, and with the entire Weyr, spellbound. Slowly, uncertain, Raphael goes to his knees. The little brown hatchling crows delightedly and scrambles toward him, finally crawling up to insinuate himself in Raphael’s enormous arms. 

Lorenz sniffles and dabs again at his face. 

“And that’s everyone,” Claude says warmly, satisfied. He sounds a bit tear-choked himself, but doesn’t beg for a handkerchief, just lets the tears pearl damply in his beard as he buries his face in Lorenz’s shoulder. “That went even better than I’d hoped.”

Lorenz silently agrees, throat too full to speak. Leicester Weyr will live to fly, and fly again. He turns his face into Claude’s thick curls and lets warm relief enfold him like a wave. There is much to do: Weyrlings to console, new riders to train, a celebratory feast to organize. But for now he gives himself just a few more moments to sit and feel the vibrant, jewel-toned thrill of joy settling in his breast, full and ripe with promise. 

**Author's Note:**

> QUICK LORE BREAKDOWN (twisted from canon to suit my purposes):
> 
> -For a week once a year, an asteroid known as the Blood Moon is close enough in orbit that it rains tiny silver worms onto Fódlan’s planet. The worms are deadly, eating every kind of living matter in their path. The worms are known as Thread. To prevent them from devouring the whole world and leaving the planet a barren, lifeless wasteland, humans have formed a symbiotic relationship with dragons. Together, dragons and their riders take to the sky each night, killing Thread with their fire breath before it can hit the ground. Dragon’s natural firebreathing abilities make this possible, as well as their ability to teleport over long distances by going between, an empty black void dimension without light or oxygen. Dragons can travel this way by envisioning their destination, but it is dangerous. Traveling without a clear enough picture can result in both dragon and rider getting lost "between," never to be seen or heard from again. 
> 
> -The continent is broken up into Weyrs, which house, train, feed, and raise new dragons to combat the ever-present threat of Thread. Weyrs are responsible for protecting the various Holds under their watch. Weyrs act as military strongholds, while Holds help them flourish by providing them farming, trade goods, and young people who are scouted to become potential dragon riders. When a scouted child “impresses” on a newly hatched dragonling, they become mentally and emotionally linked, able to communicate telepathically. 
> 
> -Dragons are native to Fódlan, and have a specific hierarchy dependant on their color. Gold dragons, or queens, are always female and always the “highest-ranking” type of dragon. They are also rarer, and are very territorial. Generally there can only be one queen per Weyr. The rest of the colors are as follows: bronze, brown, green, and blue. Queens are the only fertile color of dragon, and so they are vital to continuing dragonkind. Draconic hierarchy has historically determined which riders are of higher rank, but some Weyrs, by necessity or preference, elect their Weyrleaders and other officials on merit. 
> 
> -Without a queen, a Weyr will inevitably wither. New clutches of eggs are necessary to raise up and train each generation of dragonriders. A healthy queen can “rise” in a mating flight once a year, generally near or immediately after Threadfall. The most common pairing is gold and bronze, as bronze dragons are large and powerful enough to keep up with a queen in flight, but others are not unheard of. To fly a queen successfully is a great honor, and can result in a shift in power in the Weyr. Due to dragons’ close mental and emotional bond with their riders, a mating flight will often also result in the union of their riders.


End file.
